{"id":213763,"date":"2025-06-25T18:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/213763\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T18:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:01:13","slug":"tour-de-france-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/213763\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nowadays it\u2019s rare to see<\/strong> the Tour\u2019s main contenders competing against one another less than a month before the start of the race, but for the first time since they finished 1-2-3 in the 2024 Tour de France<\/a>, Slovenia\u2019s Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> (UAE Team Emirates), Denmark\u2019s Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Belgium\u2019s Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) competed against one another.<\/p>\n

The riders reignited their three-way rivalry at the 77th edition of the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, a stage race in southeastern France that many Tour riders use as their final warm-up for the Tour. With an individual time trial and three high-mountains stages, the Dauphin\u00e9 offered the Tour\u2019s \u201cBig Three\u201d their best chance to test themselves against top competition before the main event this July, and the race wrapped-up on Sunday with a familiar result: Poga\u010dar won the 8-day stage race, Vingegaard took second, and Evenepoel ended the week in fourth. <\/p>\n

There are still two-and-a-half weeks before the Tour begins in Northern France on Saturday, July 5, and Poga\u010dar, Vingegaard, Evenpoel, and the men chasing them will certainly come to the start of Stage 1 in Lille stronger they were than left the Dauphin\u00e9 or their final tune-up races. But the constellations are starting to align, and we think we have a pretty good idea where the Tour\u2019s top contenders will end up once the race wraps-up in Paris on July 27.
<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve broken them into tiers based on their previous Tour performances and what they\u2019ve shown (or not shown) so far this season.<\/p>\n

Tier 1 – The Defending Champion and Overwhelming Favorite
Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates)<\/strong>\"77th<\/p>\n

Dario Belingheri\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The reigning Tour de France champion, Slovenia\u2019s Tadej Poga\u010dar is aiming to win the fourth Tour de France of his career next month. (He won back-to-back Tours in 2020 and 2021.) But instead of building his entire season around winning another Tour de France, the 26-year-old started the year by storming the Spring Classics<\/a>, a 6-week run of tough one-day races that Tour de France contenders often skip in favor of training camps and short stage races. <\/p>\n

Then again, Poga\u010dar is not a typical Tour de France contender, which is part of what makes him so exciting. By the end of the spring, the Slovenian had taken victories in Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders, La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, and Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge and scored podium finishes in Milan-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix<\/a>, and the Amstel Gold Race. Poga\u010dar\u2019s spring was nothing short of legendary, an exploit that calls to mind legends such as Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault.<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

He then took a long break before starting the Dauphin\u00e9\u2013only the second stage race of his season\u2013and he picked up right where he left off, winning Stage 1. He lost a bit of time to Evenepoel and Vingegaard during an individual time trial on Stage 4, but \u201cblamed\u201d his performance on poor pacing on the first part of the course. <\/p>\n

At the time it seemed like a convenient excuse\u2013and perhaps even a smokescreen\u2013to cover the fact that maybe Poga\u010dar was a step or two behind his two biggest rivals. But he quickly put those ideas to rest, dominating the race in mountains with solo victories on Stages 6 and 7, both of which ended with summit finishes. By the time it was all said and done, Poga\u010dar won the race by 59 seconds over Vingegaard, with Evenepoel in fourth, 4:21 behind the Slovenian. <\/p>\n

Simply put: Poga\u010dar is the world\u2019s best rider and the captain of the world\u2019s strongest team. (UAE Team Emirates has dominated the sport all season.) And with three weeks between the end of the Dauphin\u00e9 and the start of the Tour, he has plenty of time to get even stronger. As far as we\u2019re concerned, it\u2019s his race to lose.<\/p>\n

Tier 2 – The Top Challenger By a Large Margin
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike)<\/strong>\"77th<\/p>\n

Dario Belingheri\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Well, not if Denmark\u2019s Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> has anything to say about it. And, well, maybe he\u2019s got a point.<\/p>\n

After all, the 28-year-old has twice defeated Poga\u010dar at the Tour de France. After finishing second to the Slovenian in 2021, the Dane took the fight right to Poga\u010dar in 2022, using the depth of his team to drop the Slovenian in the mountains, ruining his rival\u2019s bid to win a third Tour in a row. Vingegaard then defended his title in 2023, crushing an admittedly under-trained Poga\u010dar (who broke his wrist in late-April) to win back-to-back Tours of his own.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard started the 2024 season in Pog-esque fashion, winning two early stage races before a crash at the Itzulia Basque Country in early April left him with multiple fractures and a punctured lung. The fact that he made it back to the Tour de France was incredible in itself, but winning a stage and finishing second overall with no racing in his legs since the first week of April? A miracle. <\/p>\n

Fast forward to the Dauphin\u00e9 where Vingegaard returned to racing after another long break\u2013this time due to a concussion he sustained in a crash during Stage 6 of March\u2019s Paris-Nice. While serious, his injuries were much less severe, and the Dane was able to continue training with minimal interruptions. And it showed: he finished second overall, just under a minute behind Poga\u010dar. <\/p>\n

There are two perspectives from which to judge his Dauphin\u00e9 performance: on one hand, he defeated Poga\u010dar by 28-seconds in Stage 4\u2019s individual time trial and then limited his losses in the mountains, improving steadily from one day to the next. <\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, Vingegaard ceded almost a minute-and-a-half to Poga\u010dar on Stages 6 and 7, a sign that he\u2019s close but still a rung below from the Tour\u2019s defending champion. He can\u2019t expect to lose that much time to Poga\u010dar at the Tour and still go on to win it. <\/p>\n

Like Poga\u010dar, Vingegaard will certainly get stronger between now and the start of the Tour de France (he and his teammates went right from the Dauphin\u00e9 to a training camp in the Alps), and he probably has the sport\u2019s best team of coaches, nutritionists, and sport scientists helping him put the finishing touches on his preparation. <\/p>\n

He also hasn\u2019t raced all that much this season, which means he could have biggest gains still to make. If the Dauphin\u00e9 was just a chance for the Dane to kick off some rust after almost three months spent training either alone or with his team, he could be a sleeping giant that\u2019s saving his best days for the Tour. <\/p>\n

He\u2019ll also be supported by perhaps the only team of riders able to put pressure on UAE Team Emirates. And if Poga\u010dar\u2013who sometimes races too aggressively\u2013burns too many matches winning stages and fighting for time bonuses during the Tour\u2019s first week, you can bet that Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike will be ready to pounce once the race hits the Pyrenees and the Alps during the second and third.<\/p>\n

Tier 3 – Racing For Third
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step)<\/strong>\"77th<\/p>\n

Dario Belingheri\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Belgium\u2019s Remco Evenepoel won a stage and the Best Young Rider Classification on his way toward finishing third overall in last year\u2019s Tour de France, a terrific showing in the young Belgian\u2019s Tour debut. His performance was all the more impressive given the fact that he also went down in that nightmare crash at the Itzulia Basque Country, breaking his collarbone and needing surgery to repair it. <\/p>\n

Evenepoel\u2019s start to the 2025 season was similarly delayed after the double-Olympic champion (he won the road race and the time trial in Paris last summer) was doored by a postal service vehicle in early December. He sustained several fractures, a dislocated clavicle, and lung contusions in the crash, interrupting his pre-season training and delaying the start of his racing season until mid-April.<\/p>\n

So it makes sense that his performance in this year\u2019s Dauphin\u00e9 looked strikingly similar to his performance in last year\u2019s Dauphin\u00e9: he won the ITT on Stage 4, and then faded in the mountains at the end of the week. Last year he ended the race seventh overall; this year he finished the week fourth.<\/p>\n

While perhaps a bit disappointed that he wasn\u2019t able to follow Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard in the high mountains, Evenepoel knows he\u2019s got time to get stronger\u2013and that there\u2019s a long individual time trial in the middle of the Tour\u2019s first week. So he could pull on the yellow jersey as soon as Stage 5.<\/p>\n

But can he keep it? Well, that remains to be seen\u2013especially for someone who rides for one of the Tour\u2019s weakest teams (GC-wise), a squad that\u2019s lost two of its best mountain domestiques to crashes over the past few weeks. Another podium finish is probably the best Evenepoel can hope for.<\/p>\n

Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)<\/strong>\"108th<\/p>\n

Alessandro Levati\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Slovenia\u2019s Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d crashed out of last year\u2019s Tour de France\u2013the race that Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe signed him to win\u2013the team seemed to have read the writing on the wall about its 35-year-old champion\u2019s Tour prospects and instead planned the first half of his 2025 season around trying to win the Giro d\u2019Italia. But that never came to be as a crash during Stage 16 ruined the Slovenian\u2019s chances; he abandoned the race the next day.<\/p>\n

Now he heads back to the Tour de France where he\u2019ll join Germany\u2019s Florian Lipowitz as the focal point of the team\u2019s GC hopes. Rogli\u010d\u2013who\u2019s scored podium finishes in all three grand tours (including four wins in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and one in the Giro) is clearly not the rider he once was, but as he showed in overcoming a large deficit to win last year\u2019s Vuelta, he\u2019s still got something left in the tank. <\/p>\n

Rogli\u010d is definitely not a threat to Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard. But if he stays out of trouble during the Tour\u2019s tricky first week and gets stronger as the race progresses, he could challenge Evenepoel for the Tour\u2019s final podium place, especially with a deep and talented team riding alongside him, a squad that\u2019s likely to include Lipowitz, who finished third overall\u2013one spot ahead of Evenepoel\u2013at the Dauphin\u00e9. <\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Almeida (UAE Team Emirates)<\/strong>\"88th<\/p>\n

Tim de Waele\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Portugal\u2019s Jo\u00e3o Almeida finished fourth in last year\u2019s Tour de France all while riding on behalf of Poga\u010dar, an impressive performance for a 25-year-old riding his first Tour. On Sunday he took an impressive victory at the Tour de Suisse, his final race before the Tour de France, albeit one that most Tour favorites skip. <\/p>\n

Despite a start list that included few Tour contenders, Almeida rode impressively at the 8-day stage race, consistently chipping away at the riders ahead of him on the General Classification as the race progressed. By the end of the week he had won two stages, including a mountain time trial on the tour\u2019s final day to take the top spot on the race\u2019s General Classification.<\/p>\n

At the Tour he\u2019s again expected to be one of Poga\u010dar\u2019s top mountain lieutenants, but in winning three WorldTour stage races so far this season, he\u2019s shown that he has the talent\u2013and the form\u2013to both support Poga\u010dar\u2019s bid for the yellow jersey and score a podium finish of his own. <\/p>\n

Tier 4 – Everyone Else
\"111th<\/p>\n

Tim de Waele\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Behind the Tour\u2019s four podium contenders, there\u2019s a large group of riders hoping to come to the race with the form they need to put themselves on the podium should one of the men ahead of them falter. Young upstarts, talented teammates, and GC opportunists, all it takes is a crash, an illness, or a bad day for one of the pre-race podium contenders to stumble down the General Classification, putting one of these men in a position to secure a top-3 or top-5 finish.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s Carlos Rodr\u00edguez (INEOS Grenadiers)<\/strong> had an impressive Tour debut in 2023, winning a stage and finishing fifth overall. He endured a bit of a sophomore slump last year, ending the race rather anonymously in seventh. Ninth in the Dauphin\u00e9, he\u2019s hoping to challenge for another top-5 finish as the leader of an INEOS Grenadiers team that\u2019s desperate to find a consistent GC contender.<\/p>\n

American Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) <\/strong>shined in his first Tour de France with Visma-Lease a Bike last year, and the 25-year-old looks ready for another high finish. The American won Paris-Nice for the second year in a row in March and finished sixth overall at the Dauphin\u00e9. He\u2019ll join Great Britain\u2019s Simon Yates<\/strong>, winner of the Giro d\u2019Italia in May, in support of Vingegaard\u2019s bid to win the yellow jersey\u2013but don\u2019t be surprised if he manages to score a top-5 finish of his own. <\/p>\n

Great Britain\u2019s Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) <\/strong>will join Almeida as Poga\u010dar\u2019s top two domestiques. While Almeida gets the nod as a podium contender in his own right, Yates\u2013who completed the Giro in May\u2013took third at the Tour in 2023 and sixth last year. Together they\u2019ll hope to shepherd Poga\u010dar through the mountains while securing their own top-5 finishes. <\/p>\n

While riding with the French Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team, Australia\u2019s Ben O\u2019Connor (Team Jayco AlUla)<\/strong> won a stage and finished fourth overall at the Tour in 2021. But after coming up short in his bids for a podium finish in 2022 and 2023, he skipped the French race last year. But he took fourth at the Giro and second at the Vuelta, results that put him back on the GC-radar. The 29-year-old will start this year\u2019s race with an Australian squad, which might be a welcome change given the pressure GC riders often face while racing the Tour with French teams. <\/p>\n

And last but not least, Spain\u2019s Enric Mas (Movistar Team)<\/strong> took fifth and sixth at the Tour in 2020 and 2021\u2013but hasn\u2019t come close to the podium since. But Mas is a proven GC contender who has four podium finishes at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a on his resume. Seventh at the Dauphin\u00e9, he won\u2019t make a big splash during the first half of the Tour, but the 30-year-old could quietly climb into the top-5 in a Tour that\u2019s back-loaded with mountains. <\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nowadays it\u2019s rare to see the Tour\u2019s main contenders competing against one another less than a month before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[1380,85030,1331,2000,299,36,1381,85029],"class_list":{"0":"post-213763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-content-type-news","9":"tag-contentid-187c7da8-08c5-40f7-ab95-eb88590d48fa","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-locale-us","15":"tag-shorttitle-2025-mens-tour-de-france-power-rankings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114745319195417088","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}