Jens Voigt on how to stop Tadej Pogacar: "I don't see smart tactics helping... You've got to be incredibly lucky or incredibly strong"

The 2025 Tour de France is almost here. Few men in history know the biggest cycling race on the planet better than 17-time competitor Jens Voigt, and the German recently gave his thoughts ahead of the current edition.

The first place to start, is the teams. And in this regard, Team Visma | Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates - XRG stand head and shoulders above the rest of the peloton. "Well both teams have a big budget. UAE I believe, the biggest budget of all of the teams. And so, they have quite the resources to not only prepare the races in the most perfect way, but also buy really good riders," Voigt analyses in conversation with The Cycling Dane on YouTube. "With the likes of Juan Ayuso or Adam Yates as a domestique, that is actually some serious, serious quality."

As for UAE's rivals, Team Visma | Lease a Bike? "Jonas Vingegaard has a good team as well, so I believe in terms of the teams, it's more or less balanced," Voigt weighs thoughtfully. "If Wout van Aert is in good shape, he is a really important asset for the more flat stages or medium mountain stages for positioning Jonas and protecting Jonas from any sort of stress."

As such, Van Aert could be key to Vingegaard toppling Pogacar. "He could be really playing a crucial role there, and if he is in good shape, he is better than anybody else in Tadej Pogacar's team for the same role," Voigt explains. "Don't forget, he's also won a stage on Mont Ventoux before, so he can climb pretty well. So he could be the key factor, in Jonas Vingegaard winning the Tour de France."

Voigt caveats this though. "It adds another luxury problem because Wout van Aert is not 'Joe Average'. He likes to help, but he also wants to have at least one day for himself to win a Tour de France stage," analyses the German. "He is one of the five superstars of our sport... So how do you make everyone happy? That's a challenging problem as well."

There is a feeling within some in the cycling community however, that the strength of the Visma team doesn't actually matter all that much when faced with a rival in the kind of unstoppable form that Pogacar is in. So how do Visma stop Pogacar? "That is the million dollar question," Voigt laughs. "It really looks like Tadej doesn't have a weakness. He rarely does tactical mistakes, he doesn't crash that often and if he does crash he still seem to be okay after. The team is good, he's good in the mountains..."

Still, the German doesn't believe all hope is lost. "I remember that timeframe where Vingegaard put a minute or two into Pogacar when Jonas won the Tour de France," recalls Voigt. "Jonas was so strong in that timeframe. If Jonas can hit these numbers again, then you know, he might gain time in the TT."

"It is hard (to stop Pogacar ed.). Basically it comes down to brutal strengths. You've got to be stronger," Voigt concludes. "Or you've got to be incredibly lucky that he is having a bad day, or does a tactical mistake and you can drop him in the crosswinds. I don't see smart tactics really helping against Pogacar and his team. So yeah, you've got to be incredibly lucky or incredibly strong to beat Pogacar."