Jonas Vingegaard should be happy with the Tour de France route
News & Races
Every potential tour route favors Tadej Pogačar – but at least this one won’t favor him as much as it could.
After the reveal of each Grand Tour route, we wonder which stars are best suited to the course, and this week is no different as the ASO unveiled the 21 stages of the 2025 Tour de France on Tuesday. In general it is a relatively mountaineer friendly race with lots of big mountain climbs and a mountain time trial alongside the other TT on the course which is a flatter affair.
More specifically, it’s a route that Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) will probably be as happy with as he could reasonably expect – even if Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) is still a clear favorite at the moment. None of the drivers attended the presentation, but Visma’s race director Grischa Niermann was present. “We are really happy with the Tour route,” he said in brief remarks Wielerflits. “It’s really something for Jonas.”
Niermann, who replaces the outgoing Merijn Zeeman, warned that Vingegaard’s 2025 calendar was not yet set – and appeared to reopen the door to a possible start of the Giro d’Italia – but noted that the Tour’s climbing-heavy route was for his Team is favorable to Sternreiter. In other words, no route in the 2025 Tour would ever explicitly favor Vingegaard over Pogačar, but at least this route does not favor the Slovenian as much as it could have.
Let’s break it down.
As is increasingly the case this millennium, the tour’s top competitors are all fantastic high mountain climbers with excellent time trial skills. Long gone are the days when climbers without TT talent or TT talent without climbing legs could hope to achieve something in the overall ranking of the Grand Tour. Given this, it would be hard to expect a Grand Tour route to massively favor the abilities of one star contender over another. They’re all really good at it.
However, there are some areas where Pogačar is definitely better than Vingegaard, and some where it’s more of a question mark, although it’s not really clear to this author whether Vingegaard is definitely better any Main aspect of Grand Tour racing. At the 2024 Tour, Vingegaard and Visma seemed to be relying on the Dane’s strength on the big altitude climbs to give him a lead over Pogačar, but it was Pogačar who shone the most on those days.
Still, Vingegaard has at times looked better than Pogačar in such situations in the past, and who can say for sure whether a healthy Vingegaard, just months removed from a horrific accident, will be back to his best there in the future? Pogačar, on the other hand Is Pretty much better than Vingegaard on tough climbs, on any road surface that isn’t paved, and on bumpy descents. He is also probably ahead in the flat time trial. Therefore, a tour route that spends a lot of time in the heart of classic country is one thing that would really favor Pogačar – and that’s not what we’re getting in 2025.
Next year’s Tour will not have any major gravel or cobbled stages. And although the first week is quite hilly, there are relatively few high-explosive climbs like those that have brought Pogačar to several Liège-Bastogne-Liège victories. The race will include several grueling days in the Pyrenees and the Alps, as well as visits to famous climbs such as Mont Ventoux and the Tourmalet.
The Tour will also return to the Col de la Loze, the scene of Pogačar’s epic collapse in 2023. Perhaps Vingegaard has a psychological advantage on this day, as Pogačar attempts to convey the drama so beautifully conveyed to viewers by the radio broadcast of the race , not to be experienced again that day. Niermann seemed to hint at this a little and noticed it Wielerflits that the route “included climbs that Jonas has fond memories of.”
A flat TT is also on the agenda for 2025, but the other one – an 11km climb to Peyragudes – is a significantly uphill route that Vingegaard will probably appreciate.
Given what we’ve seen this year, it’s still entirely possible that Pogačar is the one with big time gaps to Vingegaard on these important GC stages in 2025 – but at least it’s more unknown than it could be. If the Tour organizers really wanted to give Pogačar an advantage over Vingegaard, they could have simply scheduled 21 days of the Oude Kwaremont-Paterberg double, in which former Tour of Flanders winner Pogačar would have the clear advantage, without Vingegaard having a good chance a landing would have a counterattack.
Long story short: the Tour 2025 route favors Pogačar simply because he is the best cyclist in the world, but hey, it could have benefited him even more! Vingegaard will have to be happy with that as he looks to reclaim his crown as Tour champion next year.
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