There are things in life that feel pre-destined, nailed on. The results of that election where the opinion polls only point one way, the football match between giant and minnow, the film in Oscars season which seems on a one-way course for Best Picture.
The mood music at the moment is that the same applies to the 2025 Tour de France, with Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates-XRG heading to the race as the outstanding favourite to win his fourth yellow jersey.
Adam Becket
News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.
The case for this is strong. The Slovenian, the world champion, has won 11 times from 22 race days this season. He hasn’t injured himself seriously, despite crashing at Strade Bianche and Paris-Roubaix, and is likely to be in the form of his life. At the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, Pogačar won what was ostensibly a sprint stage and then two mountain stages on his way to overall victory.
His team is as good as ever, with six riders who have won WorldTour stage races; the only one who hasn’t, Nils Politt, won the ProTour Deutschland Tour. Among the seven UAE riders is João Almeida, who has won three WorldTour GC titles this year, including the recent Tour de Suisse, and Adam Yates, who finished third overall at the Tour in 2023.
Meanwhile, his rivals have not had such a perfect year. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) abandoned Paris-Nice in March with concussion, and did not race again until the Dauphiné in June, where he finished a creditable second behind Pogačar, but was still a minute off the pace.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) is still on his way back to his best after suffering serious injuries in a training crash caused by the driver of a Belgian postal van. He did win the time trial at the Dauphiné, but was four minutes off Pogačar in fourth overall. Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), the final member of the big four, has looked good at times this season - he won the Volta a Catalunya in March - but was forced to abandon the Giro d’Italia midway through, and his form is unknown. He has not finished his last three Tours de France.
Last year, Pogačar won six stages on his way to a dominant overall victory by over six minutes, barely ever looking uncomfortable, and the odds would say something similar could happen again this Tour.
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If you are a betting person, then it’s clear where to put your money, although if it pays off, you won’t get much back.
However, life isn’t pre-destined, and neither is sport. While you have Labour winning the 1997 UK general election in a landslide, there was Trump’s shock victory in 2016. There might have been Manchester United 9-0 Southampton, but there was also a Southampton 6-3 Manchester United. Oppenheimer romped to the Best Picture at the Oscars, and there were also surprise winners in Crash and Green Book.
Tadej Pogačar cruised to the 2024 Tour de France, but he shocked the world with his final stage victory over Roglič in the 2020 edition. Upsets happen, and a different result is possible.
The first week of this Tour is hard, and full of potential for mayhem, as seems to happen every time the race heads to Brittany. The opening 10 days do feature sprint stages, but these are never calm at the Tour, let alone when the yellow jersey is on offer, as on stage one. There are small, punchy climbs throughout on tight roads, the perfect place for chaos, crashes or an ambush. Pogačar never seems to crash at the Tour, but he and his team will have to be attentive throughout to avoid incident or time loss.
As strong as UAE Team Emirates-XRG are, Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike is full of power too, with two Grand Tour winners in Sepp Kuss and Simon Yates, and the man who might be the best super-domestique in cycling, Wout van Aert. They will make the race difficult for Pogačar.
Vingegaard also has the upper hand in time trialling, and there are two races against the clock at this year’s Tour, a flat one in Caen on stage five, which will also suit Evenepoel, and then an uphill one on stage 13 to Peyragudes. This is exactly the kind of stage where Vingegaard thrives; in 2023, on stage 16 to Combloux, he put 1:38 into Pogačar on his way to overall victory.
This also isn’t 2024: Vingegaard, Roglič and Evenepoel are all not coming back from that horrific crash at Itzulia Basque Country, and this promises to be a closer race as a result.
This is all well and good, but Pogačar is also a better rider than he was last year, and he doesn’t have the Giro d’Italia in his legs either. He is still the outright favourite, and if the race goes to plan, he will be on the top step in Paris at the end of the month. However, it is not guaranteed. The Tour is the Tour, and anything can still happen.
This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.
Adam is Cycling Weekly’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling, he's happy. Before joining CW in 2021 he spent two years writing for Procycling. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds.
Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to riding bikes.
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