Top 10 favourites Tour de France 2025

The Critérium du Dauphiné confirmed what we already knew: Tadej Pogačar is the overwhelming favourite to win the 2025 Tour de France. The world champion has picked up where he left off in 2024. First, he dominated the Classics campaign with wins at the Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche. And now his summer campaign has begun with a consummate victory at the Dauphiné.

In the head-to-head with Jonas Vingegaard, Pogačar was an emphatic winner. His seated acceleration at Combloux burned the Dane off his wheel and it laid down an ominous marker for July. The following day at Valmeinier 1800, Pogačar seemed almost to toy with his rival, easing up in the final kilometres.

Still, the Tour isn’t won just yet, and Pogačar must be mindful of overreach. Vingegaard remains a redoubtable foe, and it’s a long way to week three of the Tour. Pogačar’s time trialling also needs work before the Tour, but it’s a minor quibble. He has all the weapons in place to win a fourth Tour.

Only one man has ever beaten Pogačar at the Tour, and, just to confirm it was no fluke, he’s done it twice. Jonas Vingegaard may have surrendered his Tour title last July, but he lost little in defeat, given the life-threatening injuries he suffered at Itzulia Basque Country just three months earlier.

Vingegaard did, however, lose a little of his aura at the Dauphiné, where Pogačar was operating on an entirely different plane in the high mountains. The onus is on him to close the gap during his Tignes training camp. Easier said than done, especially when Pogačar also has margin for improvement, at least relative to his 2024 form. 

Still, the Dauphiné was Vingegaard’s first race since he suffered a concussion at Paris-Nice, and he is clearly ahead of where he was at the same point twelve months ago. Backed by a strong Visma | Lease a Bike and armed with a belief in his ability to outlast Pogačar over three weeks, he will endeavour to make a race of it.

Remco Evenepoel had to settle for fourth at the Dauphiné, but he remains the third man in our assessment. That’s partly down to his pedigree and partly down to the fact that he improved so much between last year’s Dauphiné and Tour, where he finished third overall.

There is something reassuringly old-fashioned about Evenepoel’s Grand Tour preparations. He tends to build very steadily towards the main event and hits ideal race weight right on time rather than a few weeks ahead of schedule. Expect him to do the same this time around. 

It's also worth bearing in mind that Evenepoel's season started late due to his training crash in December - he is still building up a head of steam. The Dauphiné has taught Evenepoel that he’s probably still racing for third place at best in 2025, but the Caen time trial in the first week of the Tour gives him a chance to get into yellow early, and that might galvanise him.

Almeida served as a deluxe domestique for Pogačar last July, but that didn’t prevent the Portuguese rider from helping himself to a fine fourth place overall in his Tour debut, and he is fourth in our ranking too after his comeback victory at the Tour de Suisse. 

Already winner of Itzulia Basque Country and the Tour de Romandie this year, Almeida’s performances should place him above Evenepoel on this list, but one must bear two factors in mind: the level of competition in Switzerland wasn’t that of the Dauphiné and Almeida’s primary duty in July will be working for Pogacar.

Still, UAE already put two riders on the final podium in 2023. The way this season is going, it’s not remotely beyond the realms of possibility that they could claim two podium spots here and possibly even the top two places.

Primož Roglič showed his quality endures with his victory at the Volta a Catalunya in April, though it remains to be seen what impact his crashes and ultimate abandonment at the Giro d’Italia will have on his prospects in July.

Even before his crashes, Roglič looked short of his explosive best early in the Giro, but one wondered if that was all part of a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe master plan to use the corsa rosa as an extended training camp for the Tour de France. Since then, Roglič has been flying under the radar, which suits him just fine at this juncture.

It’s hard to imagine Roglič coping with the kind of exhibition Pogačar produced at the Dauphiné, but that shouldn’t be his focus, at least at the outset. After such rotten luck in his most recent Tour appearances, Roglič’s first target should be to get around the course and stay in the hunt for as long as possible. He can revise his ambitions accordingly as the race draws on. He may, mind, have some internal competition given Florian Lipowitz’s ongoing progress.

Lipowitz’s credentials can no longer be ignored after his sparkling display at the Critérium du Dauphiné. Being the best of the rest against Pogacar and Vingegaard is an honour at the best of times, and the German was full value for his podium spot here against men like Evenepoel and Matteo Jorgenson.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, either. Lipowitz has been hiding in plain sight all season, with second place at Paris-Nice and fourth at Itzulia Basque Country. He also showed his durability over three weeks at last year’s Vuelta a España, when he placed seventh overall while helping Roglic to the final victory.

Indeed, Roglic’s presence, as opposed to a lack of Tour experience, is the biggest question mark against the debutant. It’s not yet clear if Lipowitz will be expected to dedicate himself to Roglic entirely or if he will be granted a degree of freedom from the outset. 

Matteo Jorgenson can do a bit of everything, and that makes him an invaluable cog for Visma | Lease a Bike. He proved to be Vingegaard’s most reliable support last July, and he has been Visma’s most dependable performer thus far in a decidedly mixed campaign for the team.

The American wasn't as sharp at this year's Dauphiné as he was a year ago, but that's also because he was working for Vingegaard rather than riding for his own result. That will be the case in July, too, of course, and that puts a natural cap on his Tour ambitions.

But at the Tour, Simon Yates and Wout van Aert will join Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss in shepherding Vingegaard in the mountains. That should lighten the American's workload a little, and he again ought to stay close on GC for as long as possible at the Tour.  

O’Connor’s breakout display at the Tour in 2021 was followed by two trying outings in the following two Julys. That experience helped O’Connor to persuade his Decathlon team to deploy him elsewhere last year, and the experiment was a success. 

After placing fourth at the Giro despite struggling with illness, O’Connor produced an all-action display at the Vuelta, where he spent two weeks in the red jersey after his daring long-range effort on the road to Yunquera. He eventually had to settle for second overall behind Roglič, but the Australian could be justifiably pleased with his 2024 season, which was capped with a canny bronze medal at the World Championships in Zurich.

O’Connor has yet to hit those heights since switching to Jayco-Alula during the off-season, taking 10th at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, 15th at Paris-Nice and 12th at the Tour de Romandie. There isn’t reason for panic just yet, and he managed a solid but unspectacular seventh at the Tour de Suisse. He's moving in the right direction.

Illness has forced Mattias Skjelmose to miss the Tour de Suisse, and there is a very strong case to remove him from this list in favour of a man like Enric Mas (Movistar) or even Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), even though the Frenchman’s Dauphiné display suggested stage wins are a safer target than a high overall finish in July.

Victory in the inaugural Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica on Sunday, however, suggests that Skjelmose has recovered from illness. It just remains to be seen if missing the Tour de Suisse will hinder him in July.

Skjelmose is an intriguing talent, and he rides for one of the outstanding teams of 2025. The Dane’s victory at Amstel Gold Race, meanwhile, was proof of his ability to hang in elite company, while his fifth place at last year’s Vuelta was evidence of his potential over three weeks.

If it all comes together, Skjelmose could be one of the revelations of the Tour. If it falls flat, Lidl-Trek will lean on Tao Geoghegan Hart to lead their GC charge and Jonathan Milan to hunt stage wins.

Carlos Rodríguez was a long way off the pace at the Dauphiné, coming home in ninth place, almost nine minutes down, but his brand of unspectacular consistency might be better rewarded over three weeks; hence, he holds a spot in our top 10 for now.

A crash at the UAE Tour disrupted Rodríguez’s Spring, but he will be disappointed not to have shown clear progress after the Dauphiné after his sixth place at the Tour de Romandie. He has the habit of improving rapidly in late June, however, so there is no reason for undue panic.

All the same, there seems to be a clear cap on his ambitions in July. A top-five finish looks at the very upper end of his capabilities, which shows how far Ineos have fallen in the 2020s. Geraint Thomas will flank him in his final Tour appearance before retirement.

Want to get up to speed on all classifications? Check out our other previews of the key favourites:

• Points classification: can Girmay continue his success of last year?
• Mountain classification: breakaway success or the GC men?
• Youth classification: will Evenepoel be threatened?
• Dark horses to watch