Richard Mille and Tadej Pogacar: The RM 67-02 at the Limit of Sport

The Key Takeaways

• Richard Mille names four-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar as an official partner in June 2026
• Pogacar joins Mathieu van der Poel and Mark Cavendish in Richard Mille’s cycling roster
• He wears the RM 67-02 Automatic Extra Flat, a reference engineered for elite athletic performance
• The partnership formalises a relationship that began when Richard Mille partnered with UAE Team Emirates in 2021
• In 2024, Pogacar became only the third male cyclist to achieve cycling’s Triple Crown: Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, and UCI Road World Championship in the same year

A Partnership Built Before It Was Announced

The connection between Tadej Pogacar and Richard Mille did not begin in a boardroom.

Richard Mille partnered with UAE Team Emirates in 2021, at a point when Pogacar was already reshaping professional cycling. The Slovenian rider had announced himself to the world at the 2020 Tour de France, winning on the final time trial to become the youngest champion since 1904 — a performance that required exactly the qualities the brand has always valued: precision under pressure, controlled aggression, and an ability to produce maximum output at minimum weight. The formal partnership announced in June 2026 is, in that sense, a long-overdue confirmation of something that had already been visibly in place.

For GCC collectors who track Richard Mille’s ambassador programme, the addition of Pogacar consolidates the brand’s position as the dominant luxury watchmaker in elite cycling. Alongside Watches and Wonders as a key platform for the brand’s product strategy, the cycling roster now carries genuine sporting authority.

Design & Mechanics

The RM 67-02 Automatic Extra Flat was not designed for a podium photograph.

It was designed for the hours before one. The reference answers a specific engineering problem: how to build a watch that functions as a true instrument on the wrist of a rider sustaining 400 watts for six hours across a mountain stage. The answer involves an ultra-thin automatic movement, a case geometry shaped to the natural curve of a forearm in the drops, and a total weight that imposes no measurable distraction. Richard Mille’s philosophy across its entire catalogue is that a watch worn in competition must perform as equipment, not as jewellery. The RM 67-02 is the clearest expression of that principle.

On the Wrist, on the Road

Pogacar is not a ceremonial ambassador.

He races in the watch. That distinction matters to collectors in the GCC who are accustomed to brand partnerships where the product rarely touches the conditions it claims to be built for. The RM 67-02 has been present through four Tour de France victories, a Giro d’Italia title, two UCI Road World Championship wins, and 13 Monument victories — a body of evidence that no marketing brief can replicate. In 2025, Pogacar became the first male cyclist to hold the Tour de France title and the UCI Road World Championship Road Race title in successive years, wearing the same reference throughout.

Where It Sits in the Richard Mille Line-Up

The RM 67-02 occupies a specific position within a catalogue built almost entirely around functional extremity.

Where many Richard Mille references are defined by tourbillons, split-seconds, or skeletonised grand complications, the RM 67-02 Automatic Extra Flat makes its argument through restraint. The automatic movement and extra-thin profile represent a deliberate choice: to produce a sports watch that an elite athlete actually wears during competition rather than one that earns its place through complication count alone. For GCC collectors who hold the brand’s more architecturally complex references, the 67-02 is the quieter argument for the same philosophy.

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