'I enjoy having a rival like Pogacar' - Jonas Vingegaard primed for another Tour de France duel

Jonas Vingegaard will return to competition at the Critérium du Dauphiné on Sunday for the first time since a concussion forced him to abandon Paris-Nice in March. The Dane will use the race to fine-tune his preparation for the Tour de France and the event will also see him line up against Tadej Pogacar for the first time since last year’s Tour.

The Tour has never seen a rivalry quite like this one, with Vingegaard and Pogacar taking the top two positions in each of the past four editions of the race, claiming two overall victories apiece. Most observers expect a fifth instalment of that duel in July, and the Dauphiné will be an important test for both men.

“If I was racing without him, it wouldn’t be the same,” Vingegaard said of Pogacar in an interview with Eurosport. “Hopefully he feels the same the other way around him. I actually enjoy having a rival like him.”

In 2024, Vinegaard arrived at the Tour unsure of his condition after he suffered serious injuries in a crash at Itzulia Basque Country. The Visma | Lease a Bike rider raised hopes of a third successive Tour victory when he beat Pogacar at Le Lioran on stage 11, but he was unable to resist the Slovenian’s onslaught in the second half of the race. “After all I went through, to be able to take that stage win was really incredible,” said Vingegaard who would place second overall in Nice.

Vingegaard began his 2025 season with overall victory at the Volta ao Algarve, but his Spring was interrupted by his Paris-Nice crash and he missed a planned ride at the Volta a Catalunya. He has spent the intervening period in training, including a stint at altitude in Sierra Nevada, and he expressed hope that the missing racing miles would not prove costly in July.

“I always enjoyed the whole process of getting to the highest possible level for the Tour de France: it’s always the big goal and I always enjoy it doing the hard work here,” Vingegaard said. “Everybody’s taking a step at the moment. I also have to be better than I was two years ago, but I also have the feeling that I am improving.”

In any case, Vingegaard will expect to be better than he was in 2024, when his Tour preparation became a race against time following his long stay in hospital in the aftermath of his Itzulia crash.

“Even last year, going into the Tour, I was still kind of believing that I could go for the win,” Vingegaard said. “Obviously, that didn’t work out. But this year I feel like a completely different person, to be honest, in the way my body reacts to training and in the way my body is in general.”

Vingegaard will be joined at the Dauphiné by three members of Visma | Lease a Bike’s expected Tour de France team, with Matteo Jorgenson, Victor Campenaerts and Sepp Kuss all in action in the Alps next week. 

Tiesj Benoot, who rides the Tour de Suisse, and Wout van Aert and Giro d’Italia winner Simon Yates are also certainties for Visma’s Tour squad. Wielerflitshas reported that Edoardo Affini is set to take the spot vacated by Christophe Laporte, who has been ruled out through injury.

Affini raced the Giro alongside Van Aert and Yates, and the Italian has reportedly been requested to attend the team’s pre-Tour de France training camp in Tignes, a sign that he is line for participation in July.