From the Italian legends Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi battling over the high alpine passes of the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia in the 1940s, to Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor riding elbow to elbow up the Puy de Dôme at the 1964 Tour, to the Classics showdowns between Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara and more recently between Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert; men’s cycling has witnessed some historic rivalries.
The defining rivalry of the 2020s is between Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike). The pair have dominated cycling’s biggest race, the Tour de France, so far this decade. Their Tour superiority has changed hands regularly for the past four editions, with Pogačar’s 2021 and 2024 yellow jersey wins sandwiching the two editions won by Vingegaard.
Pogačar was the first to break onto the scene, following a third-place finish at the 2019 Vuelta a España when he was only 20 years old. He followed this up with a remarkable Tour win in 2020, cementing himself as the superstar of the men’s peloton. Such was his early success, it appeared he was unbeatable and it would be only a matter of time before he equaled Eddy Merckx's record of five Tour victories, a feat he would have completed by now if it were not for the emergence of a certain rider from Hillerslev, Denmark.
On stage 11 of the 2021 Tour, Vingegaard announced himself as a genuine rival to Pogačar when he dropped the Slovenian on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. It was one of the first occasions when Pogačar was unable to respond to an attack on a mountain stage. However, the Dane’s attack did not gain any time back on GC as he was reeled back in on the descent off the famous mountain. Pogačar went on to win the Tour by over five minutes but Vingegaard, second on GC that year, was established as his principal challenger.
Since then, their rivalry is increasingly etching itself in cycling lore. The seesawing nature of their battles at the Tour has provided a captivating spectacle. However, for both their extraordinary talents, they are decidedly different types of rider: Vingegaard is a stage racing specialist whereas Pogačar can win on almost any terrain, and starts most races as the outright favourite. The Slovenian’s career has been more fruitful than his Danish counterpart’s, winning 91 races compared to Visma rider’s 38.
Career stats - Pogačar’s all-round dominance
In their head-to-head races, Pogačar has beaten Vingegaard in 68.9% of the races they have both taken part in. The 26-year-old, the current road world champion, is a dominant one-day racer, having won seven Monument titles. Twice a winner at Strade Bianche, he can compete with one-day specialists like Mathieu van der Poel, who he beat at the Tour of Flanders in 2023.
Vingegaard, on the other hand, has not finished a one-day race in over two years, when he was 16th at Il Lombardia in October 2022; the day Pogačar won the race for the second time (he has since won the following two editions). Vingegaard’s lack of one-day success is set to continue in 2025 as his schedule only includes stage races.
Tour de France: a different story
It’s a different story when comparing the two riders' performances at the most high-profile race of the year, the Tour de France. Testament to the pairs’ dominance at the Tour, they have finished first and second in the GC at the past four editions, taking two yellow jerseys a piece since 2021. That year was Vingegaard’s debut but Pogačar already had one maillot jaune following a breathtaking penultimate time trial victory over Primož Roglič in 2020.
Since 2021, if time bonuses are excluded, Vingegaard has had the better of Pogačar by three seconds across 328 hours of racing. This time deficit represents a 0.00025% difference between the two riders in Vingegaard’s favour. However, this time difference on the road is not representative of the margins between the riders at each edition of the race because Pogačar has hoovered up 3:19 in time bonuses in total, while Vingegaard has gained 1:51.
The time bonuses come from finishing in the top three on stages, something which Pogačar, thanks to his punchy sprint, has excelled in, taking 17 stages in five Tours. Of these stage wins, 14 have come in Tours in which Vingegaard has been present. Vingegaard meanwhile, has won four stage wins.
Summit finishes - high win count vs big time margins
The two have produced memorable summit finish performances at the Tour in the last four editions. Of the Tour’s last 20 summit finishes, the pair have finished first and second nine times, and often the third place finisher on the stage has been distanced by a large margin.
On stage 11, on the road from Albertville to the summit finish up the Col du Granon, Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma team pulled off a tactical masterclass, isolating Pogačar from his teammates through hard pacing on the early climbs of the day, leaving the yellow jersey alone and having to respond to relentless attacks from Vingegaard and his Jumbo teammate Primož Roglič. On the final climb of the day to the summit of the Granon, Vingegaard attacked and distanced Pogačar by 2:51. It was a seismic result, showing that Pogačar was beatable and a true rivalry was born.
Last year, Pogačar produced an equally astonishing effort in the Pyrenees, beating Vingegaard by over a minute to the summit of Plateau de Beille, and to do so he produced one of the greatest climbing performances of all time in terms of watts per kilo. This stage 15 result put to bed the 2024 Tour, after Vingegaard – who suffered a severely disrupted build-up after a catastrophic crash in Itzulia Basque Country in March – was beginning to show signs that he could challenge Pogačar for the yellow jersey after a rousing win in the Massif Central on stage 11.
Discarding the four summit finishes on which the two rolled across the line together in a group, of the 20 summit finishes in the last four Tours, Pogačar has beaten Vingegaard in 13 of them, with Vingegaard getting the upper hand on only three. However, the time margins on the three that Vingegaard came out on top amounted to 9:40 whereas Pogačar’s 13 summit finish wins over Vingegaard came out as a margin of 4:49. Put simply, when Vingegaard wins he wins big.
Time trials - ‘race of truth’ not offering concrete answers
The pair’s supremacy in Tour summit finishes over the last four editions extends to time trials. Pogačar has won eight out of the 12 head-to-head time trials where they have faced each other in their careers. However, when this is narrowed down to Tour TTs, where both riders will have been in top form, Pogačar only comes out on top in four out of the seven time trials.
In fact, combining all their Tour de France TT results, it is Vingegaard who comes out on top by nine seconds over 193.3km. This is in a large part due to his remarkable TT on the road from Passy to Combloux on stage 16 of the 2023 Tour, where he put 1:38 into his Slovenian counterpart. Like Vingegaard's performance on the Granon in 2022, the 2023 time trial stunned viewers and cemented the pair’s growing rivalry.
Different paths to Lille
The two will go head to head again at the 2025 Tour - a prospect that will excite fans around the world. Like most years, they are taking different paths to the Tour. They both already have a GC win to their name in 2025; Pogačar at the UAE Tour and Vingegaard at the Volta ao Algarve. Unlike Vingegaard’s build-up, which will see him compete at stage races only, including Paris-Nice and the Volta a Catalunya in March and Critérium du Dauphiné in June, Pogačar is taking on a host of one-day races before a mouth-watering encounter with his rival at the Dauphiné.
The world champion heads to Strade Bianche before he looks to add to his Monument tally at Milan-Sanremo, a race he has not won yet in his career. He will then take on some cobbled Classics in the build up to Flanders, which he won in 2023, before taking on the Ardennes Classics.
Pogačar and Vingegaard’s different strengths, tactics and racing preferences make their rivalry all the more intriguing. For a fifth time in a row they will be the main protagonists on the roads of France this July. Whoever comes out on top will have had to make the most of their individual strengths while withstanding those of their opponent.
