Romain Bardet: "If there is someone who can beat Tadej Pogacar, it has to be Jonas Vingegaard"

Tadej Pogacar has been made the overwhelming favourite to win the 2025 Tour de France by bookmakers around the world. When it comes to looking for potential challengers to the Slovenian however, it's widely thought that Jonas Vingegaard is the rider most likely to upset the odds.

Vingegaard, a two-time Tour de France winner in his own right, defeated Pogacar at both the 2022 and 2023 editions of the French Grand Tour. As such, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike leader is believed to have the most chance to do something similar this time around.

"From what we have seen so far this season - it’s the second year in a row, an amazing one that Pogacar is having - maybe the odds are a bit against Vingegaard and Visma," the recently retired Romain Bardet tells TNT Sports in a pre-Tour press call. "But if there is someone who can beat Pogacar, it has to be Vingegaard."

"We have seen in the past, and also at the last Grand Tour the Giro, even if it was not Vingegaard, the masterclass, the masterplan they [Visma] established with Simon Yates to conquer the Giro was just, for me, the DNA of Visma, to be able to do this kind of strategy plan to turn a race upside down," continues the Frenchman, who won stage 1 of the Tour de France in 2024. "I really think they have a chance; they will, as always, pick one or two days where they think they can crack Pogacar and win big."

As Bardet notes himself however, cracking Pogacar will be something much easier said than done. "From what we have seen in the last two years, it’s hard to find any way to try to beat him [Pogacar]," he explains. "I think he learned also a lot and he worked on his weaknesses from where Jonas won the two consecutive Tours. There was also some excitement that he wants to take revenge on the Col de la Loze [after his 2023 blow-up], which will be the Queen Stage of the Tour."

"We saw in the Dauphine, it was a super nice evaluation of where people are at the moment; there are not even three weeks in between so most of the training and work is already done. Even if Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel are also super talented and world-class, Pogacar has been in a league of his own for the last 18 months," Bardet continues.

"The first ten days this year in the Tour will maybe be a bit more complicated for him (Pogacar ed.) to deal with than the last few years," concludes the 34-year-old Frenchman's analysis of the main Maillot Jaune contenders. "Even if he’s really strong physically, he will have to rely on a strong team organisation, and I can see Visma taking advantage in the first week in the north of France at some point, really working closely around Vingegaard. If they are together in the last 1km when it’s hilly and a small uphill finish, Pogacar has more punch, but before that there can be wind, and they’ve shown in the past to do a better job to keep their leader safe in the front of the bike race. For sure they will try to sneak every opportunity to try to test the UAE team, their core, and how they can react to unpredictable racing."