Six mountain stages, hilly days from the beginning, and an uphill time trial mean it will be hard to dislodge the Slovenian from his throne, but Jonas Vingegaard could
The good news, I suppose, is that Tadej Pogačar almost certainly won’t win stage one of next year’s Tour de France. The opening day will probably end in a sprint, with the yellow jersey heading to the shoulders of a fast man, but who could rule anything out for the Slovenian. The UAE Team Emirates rider won the final three stages of this year’s Tour, and already, nine months out from the 2025 edition, he is the overwhelming favourite. It is almost impossible to design a route which wouldn’t favour Pogačar, and this certainly isn’t that. Aside from a few more punchy finishes, it’s hard to know what else would be on his wish list.
The Tour de France 2025 route is a climber’s course – although when is it anything else – and the man atop the podium will be someone who can excel in the thin air of the Alps and Pyrenees, although there is barely a moment to switch off elsewhere.
While Pogačar ends this year, and will start 2025 as the a man to beat in everything he does, there is also hope for Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) in this route; there is a return to some of the places he has beaten his biggest rival in the past, including the Hautacam and the Col de la Loze, and the reappearance of a mountain time trial, a specialism the Dane has pressed home his advantage in before.
However, such was the dominance of Pogačar this year, that everyone else starts far behind in the power rankings. Even if Vingegaard enters next year’s race in perfect health, unlike this year, it seems hard to tell, this far away, if he can regain his position of superiority. Remember, though, he is the one who has proved that Pogačar is fallible before in 2021, and then 2022. Why not again?
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