Not just Pogacar versus Vingegaard - Five storylines to follow at the 2025 Critérium du Dauphiné

While Pogacar and Vingegaard have been notoriously difficult to separate in July, it’s proven altogether more complicated to put them together the rest of the year. Since their first duel on the 2021 Tour de France, they have competed against one another in stage races outside of July on just two occasions – at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2022 and Paris-Nice in 2023. 

Pogacar was a convincing winner in each of those encounters, beating Vingegaard into second at Tirreno and third at Paris-Nice, but the Dane would have the last laugh in the summer in both years. Indeed, up to and including the Le Lioran stage of last year’s Tour, Pogacar must have privately wondered if Vingegaard simply had his number in the white heat of the Tour de France. Vingegaard’s resistance would break on the third weekend of the race, but it was still clear that the never-ending rivalry would continue into 2025.

This Dauphiné is so novel because the pair have never clashed so close to the main event. In some ways, it feels like the opening act of the Tour itself, with each man surely keen to score psychological points against the other in the Alps. On the other hand, the clock reverts to zero in Lille on July 5. They might be wary about showing too much too soon. Either way, it promises to be the most box office Dauphiné since Alberto Contador and Chris Froome slugged it out in 2014 – though it’s hard to imagine an Andrew Talansky snatching the spoils from the Big Two here.

The third man at this Dauphiné, like at last year’s Tour, will be Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian has always been judged by a harsh standard. Even after winning the Vuelta a España in 2022, there were those who reckoned Evenepoel wasn’t really a Grand Tour rider at all. His consistent – and high-level – Tour debut last year surely gave lie to that assertion, but the problem for Evenepoel is that he is competing in the same era as Pogacar and Vingegaard.

A repeat of his third place of 2024 would represent par for Evenepoel at this year’s Tour, but he has always been an ambitious type. This Dauphiné will offer him a chance to measure himself against that Pogacar and Vingegaard ahead of July and calibrate his true target for the Tour. 

Although Evenepoel’s season was delayed by a heavy crash, his approach to the summer has been more tranquil than it was a year ago, when he was chasing form – and his ideal weight – after breaking his collarbone at Itzulia Basque Country. Coach Koen Pelgrim told us this week that Evenepoel is 1.5kg lighter than he was a year ago, when he trained his way through the Dauphiné to finish 7th. This time out, he will hope to win the midweek time trial and then be a real factor in the race for overall victory.

Just as Vingegaard stepped into the injured Primoz Roglic’s shoes on the 2021 and 2022 Tours de France, Matteo Jorgenson has shown himself a most able substitute for the Dane when circumstances demand it. In Vingegaard’s injury-enforced absence at last year’s Dauphiné, Jorgenson stepped up to the plate with a fine second place overall, just eight seconds behind Roglic. When Vingegaard crashed out of Paris-Nice in March, the American duly secured his second straight overall victory at the Race to the Sun.

In the weeks that followed, Jorgenson was on cobbled Classics duty alongside Wout van Aert, but he reverts firmly to stage racing mode for the summer, where he is again likely to be Vingegaard’s key climbing domestique at the Tour. In 2024, Jorgenson’s work for Vingegaard didn’t prevent him from taking 8th overall.

It will be fascinating, however, to see Jorgenson’s precise role at this Dauphiné. Under normal circumstances, Jorgenson should be deployed as Vingegaard’s last man here. But if Vingegaard finds himself a touch undercooked after his truncated early-season, then Jorgenson might have a bigger part to play in the story of the week.

When Mathieu van der Poel fractured his wrist in mountain bike action in Nové Mesto last month, there were briefly fears that his Tour de France participation might be compromised. Those concerns were quickly put to rest when Van der Poel was spotted out training while wearing a protective brace on his wrist, and on Thursday, Alpecin-Deceuninck confirmed that the Dutchman would feature in their line-up for the Dauphiné as initially planned.

The Dauphiné will be Van der Poel’s first road race since Paris-Roubaix in April and while his wrist injury might limit his effectiveness here, he rarely races simply to train. Indeed, in some ways, Van der Poel rarely races on the road at all, but he maximises returns. He has taken four wins from twelve race days thus far in 2025, including two Monuments.

In an interview with Helden magazine, team manager Philip Roodhooft expressed irritation at criticism of Van der Poel’s meagre diet of road racing, pointing to the reaction to his two Monument victories in 2024: “Afterwards, he was criticised for having only raced seven times. But I think to myself: the results were pretty good, weren’t they?” 

They were, and there’s every chance the results will be pretty good for Van der Poel in the opening phase of this Dauphiné, too, wrist injury notwithstanding. The first three days feature terrain just rolling enough to rule out the pure sprinters and just gentle enough to keep Van der Poel in contention. He will surely look to leave a mark.

Romain Bardet’s long farewell to professional cycling began last year and it probably already reached its emotional peak when he claimed stage victory and the yellow jersey on the opening day of his final Tour de France. Still, the Picnic-PostNL rider was an aggressive presence in his final Grand Tour at last month’s Giro d’Italia, and now he will take his formal bow from the peloton on home roads at the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Bardet finished in the top 10 of the Dauphiné seven times in a row between 2014 and 2020, but he has not lined out at the event since he left AG2R ahead of the 2021 season. On his return to the Dauphiné, Bardet will target one final flourish rather than the general classification. Mindful of the presence of Pogacar et al, Bardet knows that his best chance, like at last year’s Tour, will come early. In any case, stage 3 starts from Bardet’s native Brioude, and that will be a fitting send-off for a rider who, alongside Thibaut Pinot, defined French cycling for more than a decade.

On that note, this Dauphiné will also feature the two outstanding talents of the next generation of French cycling, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Paul Seixas (Decathlon AG2R). Martinez should feature in the upper reaches of the GC here, while the neo-pro Seixas is riding largely for experience but he could make an impact, as he did at the Tour of the Alps in April. France is still waiting for a successor to Bernard Hinault’s 1985 Tour de France win, and the Dauphiné isn’t a bad place to look for omens. A youthful Hinault’s dramatic win on the 1977 Dauphiné was a portent of things to come.