On the eve of the 2025 Tour de France the ultimate destiny of the yellow jersey felt finely poised. Two men had shared the top two steps on the podium for the previous four editions, an unprecedented feat. Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard stood head and shoulders above anyone else in the peloton.
By the end of the race last month, that was no longer exactly true. Vingegaard was still a league clear of any other rider. The problem was that Pogacar was a further league above him. Before, Vingegaard looked like Pogacar’s equal; now he is the nearly-man, the also-ran, standing in the shadow of his great rival.
That feels an unfair descriptor of a brilliant grand tour racer, but the 28-year-old Vingegaard now faces a crossroads in his career. At two years younger than him, Pogacar has three more grand tour victories, plus a rainbow jersey, nine Monument titles, and 17 more Tour de France stage wins. Of the 13 stage races in which they have directly competed, Pogacar has finished higher in 10, Vingegaard higher in three – one edition of Itzulia Basque Country, and two in the Tour de France.
The two are not the same style of racer; Vingegaard has never targeted the entire calendar, and every style of road racing, in the way Pogacar has (the Slovenian has 15 races on his 2025 programme, Vingegaard just six). Vingegaard aims to peak for the Tour de France, and doesn’t tend to do a whole lot else – or at least little that doesn’t contribute towards that goal.
But perhaps, having suffered a chastening defeat this summer, it’s time he did. As Pogacar once said, there is more to cycling than just riding the Tour de France.
There will be no immediate rematch, with Pogacar taking some well-deserved time off, but Vingegaard heads to the Vuelta with a point to prove – and a way to tip the grand tour scales in Visma-Lease a Bike’s favour this year.
This Vuelta is set to be another instalment in the clash between the peloton’s two titanic teams. Lieutenants Simon Yates and Isaac del Toro did proxy war for Vingegaard and Pogacar at the Giro d’Italia, and we all know what happened at the Tour. This Vuelta is a chance for redemption, both for Vingegaard and his ‘killer bees’.
In 2023 the team enjoyed an annus mirabilis, winning all three grand tours with three different riders, but the Vuelta was something of a spanner in the works. Theoretical co-leaders Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic found themselves playing second fiddle to unexpected race leader Sepp Kuss. Vingegaard and Roglic attacking their teammate did not go down well and Visma made them fall into line behind the American. All three stood on the podium at the end of the race, but the damage was done. Roglic departed at the end of the season.
There will be no such issue this time around: Vingegaard arrives as undisputed leader, with a formidable team around him. Kuss has not quite scaled the same heights since his Vuelta triumph but was an important domestique once again in the high mountains in France; Matteo Jorgenson suffered an unusual number of off-days at the Tour but on paper is the strongest domestique in the team. Victor Campenaerts, an enormous engine who out-performed many of the best climbers in the Alps and Pyrenees, is another huge asset.
Their rivals will once again be UAE Team Emirates. With no Pogacar to rally around, the team has proved vulnerable in recent months. Management dithered at the Giro over whether to back Spanish super-talent Juan Ayuso or starlet-in-waiting Del Toro, who eventually finished second. Ayuso will once again have to share the leadership mantle, this time with Joao Almeida.
That is a spark waiting to catch fire. The pair clashed at the Tour last year over Ayuso’s perceived lack of effort in helping Pogacar (Almeida, like Kuss, is the consummate domestique). The Portuguese may be off-colour after breaking a rib at the Tour, but if he is back to full strength, the squad face a difficult task in balancing competing ambitions, especially with Ayuso rumoured to be eyeing the UAE exit door.
Any disharmony in the group will be ruthlessly exploited by Visma. They – particularly Jorgenson – proved adept at getting on Pogacar’s nerves at the Tour; the American will surely be needler-in-chief again in Spain. (Throughout the first week of skirmishing Pogacar described Visma’s constant attacks to wear him down as “annoying”, and made thinly veiled comments about gamesmanship in feed zones. When Visma waited for the Slovenian after his stage 11 crash, Jorgenson retorted: “I think after all his accusations of unsportsmanlike behaviour, which I’ve never heard from him before, he can now trust that we want to beat him in a fair way.”)
They may not need any dark arts, of course. Vingegaard is the best climber and most astute tactician on the start list. The Vuelta, in theory, is his to lose.
But a grand tour is rarely that straightforward. Who could trouble him? Antonio Tiberi and Felix Gall have finished in the top five at grand tours; Ben O’Connor was second overall in Madrid last year and a recent stage winner at the Tour de France. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have no Roglic but a star of the future in Italian Giulio Pellizzari plus former Giro winner Jai Hindley, and Soudal Quick-Step are preparing for life sans Remco Evenepoel with Spanish veteran Mikel Landa in charge.
Then there’s Tom Pidcock, with a question mark – as ever – over whether he will seriously target the general classification or go stage-hunting instead. His Q36.5 outfit were awarded a maiden wildcard to the Vuelta and are in need of some wins for their pet project.
The Vuelta, often the sort of weird cousin to the other two grand tours, has a broad range of potential winners this year. But even without Pogacar on the start line, there could still be a Pogacar-style result. A laser-focused Vingegaard will be hoping to emulate his great rival in one respect: to crush all the opposition.
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