ANALYSIS | Tadej Pogacar vs Jonas Vingegaard: 4 years of rivalry and battles

Bartali vs Coppi, Anquetil vs Poulidor, Merckx vs Ocaña, Hinault vs LeMond, Longo vs Canins, Armstrong vs Ullrich and ... Pogacar vs Vingegaard. We take a look at one of the most epic rivalries in the history of cycling and what they have achieved racing against each other.

All sports live on rivalries. It's the essence of everything high-level competition, rivalry brings out the competitive spirit in every athlete and in cycling, professionals live to beat their great rivals on the road. Together with CiclismoAtual, we have taken a close look into some interesting stats.

These days, there are no names that mirror the concept of rivalry in men's road cycling more than Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates and Jonas Vingegaard of Team Visma | Lease a Bike. The 26-year-old Slovenian and the 27-year-old Dane are undoubtedly the two biggest names in cycling when it comes to the Grand Tours, and when we think of big confrontations in cycling today we certainly can't imagine a bigger scenario than having these two forces of nature face off. Just consider that Pogacar and Vingegaard have won the last five editions of the Tour de France between them.

In 2024, for the 4th consecutive year, the two cyclists occupied the top two positions in the overall classification of the Tour de France (with each of them winning two editions in this time frame), which further reflects their dominance over the rest of the World Tour peloton. We've taken a closer look at the performances of the two champions in the last four editions of the Tour and put together some data that we think is interesting at a time when all eyes are on the planning for next season and the head-to-head tiebreaker between the two.

Note: Please note that for the purposes of this analysis, the time frame from 2021 is taken into account, since in 2020 Jonas Vingegaard did not take part in the Tour de France. At the time, Tadej Pogacar ended up beating his compatriot Primoz Roglic in a dramatic finish that saw him jump into the yellow jersey on the Planche des Belles Filles time trial in the penultimate stage of the edition.

1) Cumulative overall ranking 2021-2024

Let's say we hypothetically forget the fact that Jonas Vingegaard didn't enter the 2021 Tour de France as team leader and only took the lead after Primoz Roglic abandoned, or that in 2022 they both ended up playing a role as co-leaders within Jumbo-Visma (now Team Visma | Lease a Bike), or that in 2023 Tadej Pogacar entered the Tour recovering from a fractured wrist, or that in 2024 Jonas Vingegaard also entered the Tour still recovering from various injuries sustained in a crash in the Tour of the Basque Country.

If we look at the actual race times of both cyclists, there is a clear winner over the last four years. Tadej Pogacar has been 1m25s faster than Jonas Vingegaard over the last 4 editions, and he managed to recover in 2024 from a record that was unfavorable to him after a year in 2023 where he had a third week below the level he has been used to in recent years - where he famously cracked on the Col de la Loze monster stage.

But looking at the figures below we have to be a little cautious because the numbers don't fully reflect what we see on the road and we may have a slightly wrong perception of what the difference in strength between the two cyclists really is.

2) But was Pogacar really that dominant?

What if we took away the bonifications at the finish line? Would we still have the same difference between the two riders?

It seems that if the race times were calculated without bonuses, not only would the differences be shorter, but Jonas Vingegaard would actually beat Tadej Pogacar's time on the road. Even so, we're talking about a difference of just 3 seconds in 4 editions with a total of 13667 kilometers, which is minimal and reflects the great balance between these two colossi;

3) Trends from year to year

Over the years, Tadej Pogacar has gained time on Jonas Vingegaard in 20 stages of the Tour, while Vingegaard has gained time on the world champion only six times. This demonstrates the contrasting styles of the two cyclists: Pogacar is always more explosive and offensive, while Vingegaard is more surgical in measuring his efforts. Pogacar often gains time, much of it in bonifications, but it is Vingegaard who is able to give his rival the biggest blows.

See the graph below which shows the differences between Pogacar and Vingegaard over the years, in seconds.
*Note: The values below the 0 line represent an advantage for Pogacar, above the line an advantage for Vingegaard. In red we have values without bonuses and in green values with bonuses.

4) Time gained against the clock

In this specialty, for the purposes of analysis, we consider all the races contested throughout the seasons, since the type of effort expended in this discipline will always be very similar regardless of the race being contested.

The time trial is a discipline in which every Grand Tour cyclist is almost "obliged" to specialize currently. Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard have faced each other 10 times in individual time trials over the last four seasons. Pogacar has won 6 times and Vingegaard 4 times. The most common tendency is for Pogacar to have the advantage in efforts on flatter terrain, while Vingegaard tends to have the advantage when there are climbs involved. The exception to the rule was seen in the last stage of this year's Tour between Monaco and Nice, where Pogacar gave the competition no chance and took his sixth stage win, securing his third career yellow jersey.