ANALYSIS: 3 reasons Jonas Vingegaard can beat Tadej Pogacar at 2025 Tour de France
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar has written his 2024 season into the annals of cycling history, surpassing even the barbarities of Eddy Merckx in the seventies. For his rivals however, all hope is not lost.
This has caused many to begin to dismiss Jonas Vingegaard and to take it for granted that the Slovenian superstar is going to dominate the Dane once again at the 2025 Tour de France. Here are 3 reasons to help you not to take it so much for granted!
1. The fall in the Itzulia.
The Tour 2024 has been conditioned by the fall of Jonas Vingegaard in the Itzulia Basque Country. The Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader was able to recover in time to make it to the Grande Boucle, but not to do so in peak form, so it was an unequal fight against the UAE's leader, as it had been in 2023 because of the latter's crash in Liège. The last time the two went toe-to-toe without injury in the high mountains was in 2022 and the Dane was the man who prevailed.
2. The calendar
Although it has been rumoured that Vingegaard may ride the Giro d'Italia in 2025, what we know for sure today is that the Visma rider is preparing thoroughly to arrive at the Tour de France in perfect shape, while Pogi has very important objectives before that. In particular, for next year he will have the Milan-San Remo in his sights and it would be rare not to see him in the Ardennes or in Flanders fighting to accumulate more Monuments. Very different strategies: one that goes for everything like Merckx and the other focused on the grand tours like Armstrong;
3. The level in the flat time trial of the Tour.
What Jonas Vingegaard did in the Combloux time trial at the 2023 Tour de France is something we've never seen Tadej Pogacar do. The Danish rider moved watts at the level of Miguel Induráin in an incredible display that shows his preparation is 300% focused on the world's most important race. So, if there was equality in the high mountains (something feasible), the one who has demonstrated in flat time trials to be able to show the highest level is Vingo.
Pogi is an all round much better rider. Put them toe to toe & Jonas doesn't stand a chance. The reason Jonas has 2 TDF victories is down to team UAE, not having the riders previously to help Tadej. Visma organised their team solely around Jonas & had their tactics in place. UAE up until this year have been dreadful in their tactics to support their leader.
Worth recalling that Tadej's two losses to Jonas were due to (i) excessive exuberance when attacked by a whole team (Visma) and then (ii) having poor preparation due to the LBL crash. For that reason Jonas's two TdF wins don't count as unqualified successes in my view.
I agree with both of those. But for Jonas’s losses one could also say: 2021 - started race as domestic for Roglic so was already behind when he became the GC guy; 2024 - crash and lousy prep, worse than Tadej 2023. Both fantastic riders For TdF 2025 let’s hope they both arrive in peak form, injury free, and with all their key teammates.
Who knows who can win? I'll be hoping for Pogacar, but the road and their legs will ultimately give us the answer
Pogacar 2024 was incredibly good. Everything went perfect. Jonas 2024 was hampered by that heavy crash in Itzula -> far from his best level on the tour. Jonas level in 2023 + jumbo visma level in 2023 would have been a totally different story. And even if i think this Pogacar would have won, it is far from certain. Pogacar will not win the next 10 tour de France - there will be loss for him as well. And it could already starts in 2025
Of course Jonas can win. He’s done it twice and he wasn’t so far off Pog’s level this year even with a terrible leadup. Basically what it takes is for Pog to have one bad day.
This comment showed us, you didn't learn anything from 2024. You need to revise it my friend
I laugh! After 2023 people were talking as if Pogi was yesterday’s man who was only going to the Giro because he could never win the tour against Jonas Now after 2024 Pogi is never going to lose again? Pogi had a freaking amazing year in 2024 while Jonas had a subpar year (by his own very high standards). Who knows what will happen in 2025? But on the evidence we have Jonas can very much win the Tour and is in fact the second most likely rider to do so.
how so, out of curiosity? I don't disagree with you. especially on the 3rd point. MSR is far enough away. and in 2022, Jonas wasn't stronger, Tadej didn't ride smart chasing down Primoz and on top of that was malnourished.
It has never been confirmed it was a feeding issue. That is something fans made up, and Jonas still won time on him outside that stage. Jonas was not the strongest rider overall in 2022, but he was the better climber, which Pogacar himself admitted.
A fair question, I'll try to answer it. We all know that Jonas had a heavy crash this year, however even without it, it seems unlikely that he would have beaten this version of Tadej that has no weakness, and in the Tour had 0 bad days. Can we realistically expect Jonas to push 30w more than what he did to not only make up the difference but to drop Pogacar and gain time, especially because he will lose some time due to his lesser explosiveness. The article is talking about 2022 and comparing them at that point, laughable, both have improved massively and one could argue that Tadej made bigger improvements Calendar, I can agree with but that's mostly on Pogacar trying to do "everything". Last point, Combloux TT that the article is mentioning was absolutely NOT a flat TT, like they claim. In fact, has Jonas even ridden a flattish TT better than Pogacar (disregarding a 2021 TT where Pogi has already won the Tour and was probably more focused on not crashing than winning it)? So all in all, points 1 and 3 are BS and 2 in completely Pogacar dependent But overall I do agree with the conclusion, Jonas can beat Tadej but that's more because of something Pogacar did wrong
No opinion here really as the answer is obvious because the question is badly put. Can you clarify one thing. Why would Jonas need to push 30W more if after 3500km he’s only 3 minutes behind? We all know he has amazing recovery capabilities so I have no interest in wattage figures as it’s the average over the 3 weeks that wlll be determining results ( though many other factors come into play beside wattage.
Because 3400 of those km don't matter. The Tour is decided in TTs and last kms of mountain stages I said 30 because he has to first be on equal level, then be be slightly better (but Pogacar can still ride in the wheel because Jonas lacks explosiveness to get initial separation) and then some more to drop him and keep increasing the gap on the road. Whether in reality that's 20 or 40w or somewhere in between, I don't know
No, that’s just how it’s been recently with the routes, profiles and predictability all helping to make it seem that way. The TdF can also be decided through other factors but I agree with the rest of your analysis.
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- Pogacar and van der Poel have won the last 6 Monuments, and 11 of the last 13 Monuments. There’s never been domination like this by two riders, and we are in our third year of it. (Merckx and de Vlaeminck won a total of 30 Monuments between 1966 and 1979, but others were winning along the way, as well.)RidesHills06-04-2025
- Yes but what was the dumb effort by Van Aert to drop Pogacar, Vanderpoel and Pederson about.? Just showing face? If he had stayed on the wheels and not wasted energy, he might have got on the podium in the runners up sprint.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- What a loser.
santiagobenites06-04-2025 - I agree about the sprint or drilling it on the flat. Lighter rider versus heavier rider. Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion (e.g the heavier riders momentum) and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- Definitely, he is a great rider, and this season might even be as good as last (in a perfect world, a few more Monuments, a Tour-Vuelta double, and the Worlds again), but he has to do this for years on end to compare to Merckx’s results from roughly 69 to 74. Yes, times have changed, yes competition is different, yes speeds are higher, and so on, but let’s let Pogacar be Pogacar and give him time. We can evaluate his career when he retires. Until then, let’s enjoy it while we have it.RidesHills06-04-2025
- Excellent work and show from all of them, glad to see van Aert got back to shape in time. Bring on P-RMistermaumau06-04-2025
- All this seems right but the problem is that two riders of differing weight going at the same speed will have different power and they will also have different power per weight yet are both (in theory, i.e. when trying their hardest) at their max,which means the lighter one is proportionally losing more to the wind (working harder to overcome), the heavier one proportionally losing more to rolling resistance and bounce. The extremely difficult calculations to know which of the 2-3 causes the bigger effect under what exact conditions is what makes it impossible to say who will benefit most in many situations when they aren’t different enough to make it obvious, i.e. a puny climber of 50kg vs a sprinter of 80kg on either the flat or a mountain.Mistermaumau06-04-2025
- Far more tension than expected, the other teams really worked Pogacar over as much as can be expected, they kept getting away and getting caught, and he launched later than I thought he would. And still, here is Monument 8, he’s now won at least twice in every one he has won. Excellent job for Pederson and Ganna amongst all the other results. What a race!RidesHills06-04-2025
- If you throw 2 identical golf balls at the same speed, but one is twice the weight, it will go a bit farther (wind resistance is the same, so the amount of energy of the heavier ball is higher). If you throw 2 identical golf balls at the same power, but one is twice the weight, it will go less far (the amount of energy is the same, so the lighter one is going faster). Remember that in a flat TT, once up to speed, the amount of weight is basically negligible (except a tiny amount of increase in rolling resistance). It's all power vs CdA. Probably the best way to think about this is with a truck (with a covered bed) over a flat but very bumpy road, and ideal tire pressure for the weight. Now, load the truck up to 3X the mass, change the tire pressure to the new ideal pressure, and do the run again. What will take the most amount of power? It's quite obvious that it's the run with the more mass. (Many of us have done this test in real world conditions without realizing it.) Why? Because there's deformation loss to the tire, which is somewhat worse when there's more mass, but there's also the loss from having to lift that much more weight over and over again.acem8206-04-2025
- ...Cause cycling at this level is always about the compromise of weight vs power. Pogacar could be stronger at a higher power, but his power to weight ratio would suffer. All else held equal is very important to understand they physics here, but that's *never* how cycling actually works.acem8206-04-2025