Summertime and the previews look easy. Last year’s Tour de France podium Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel meet up for this yellow jersey dress rehearsal.
It’ll also be easier to follow thanks to regular finish times each day… except Sunday.
Route summary
Another Tour of the Auvernge-Rhone-Alpes region more than the Dauphiné. There’s hilly opener and the possible sprint stages to Issoire, Charantonnay and Macon have traps for the sprinters. There’s a mainly flat 17km time trial.
The race concludes in the Alps with two and a half summit finishes, the half because the final day is up the Col du Mont Cenis but then the road flattens out with 5km across to the finish. If you want more there’s the stage-by-stage look from January.
The Contenders
Tadej Pogačar (UAE) hasn’t won this race and he’s here to add it to prolific palmarès. Analysing his chances in detail feels like a waste of internet bandwidth given everyone knows his win rate. Three notes: first, he’s the one whose form might be in a relative trough given he finished a long classics campaign just over a month ago so losing here will make headlines, but needn’t be disastrous. Second, he comes with what looks like most of his Tour team where Pavel Sivakov could be a back-up but normally they’re all in behind the leader. Third, if he is sizzling then course suits with punchy uphill finishes where he can out-sprint others to take time bonuses, he could even lead the race from start to finish.
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB) pins on a number after crashing out of Paris-Nice. Like a submarine we’ve seen little of him all year but he’s had time to prepare without injury nor distraction. Plenty rests on him this week given rides at the Dauphiné get extrapolated so if he can get the better of Pogačar then the Tour de France will look more promising; if he looks stale then so might July. Matteo Jorgenson almost won the race last year and as he keeps improving can he go one better? That’s tough with the rivals here but he gives the team more options.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) had a mixed time here last year, a TT stage win to mark his post-crash rehab but was dropped on the climbs, his cherubic cheeks and Covid playing a part. Now his coach has “helpfully” raised expectations this week with pre-race talk saying he’s in great shape and leaner too. Evenepoel would prefer a 40km time trial to gain the advantage, so without this how to win? It’s hard to see him riding away on a climb but it could happen if Pogačar and Vingegaard mark each other although their rivalry doesn’t seem that exclusive. Evenepoel could hope to track Vingegaard and Pogačar and then hit them on the flat road after the Col du Mont Cenis… but there’s only 5km to go here and good luck riding away if he’s still there. Look to see how much support he has in the mountains because his squad just can’t bend the race to their shape like UAE or Visma.
It’s hard to see past the lead trio for the win. So while it’s exciting to see this trio, their presence seems to have deterred plenty from taking part. Some others to keep an eye on…
Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) is a rider on the up as he improves his race craft. Second in Paris-Nice, fourth in the Basque Country, he’s not yet certain to ride the Tour de France, the team will see how he does here. This old-school Dauphiné form test adds a touch of pressure when otherwise he’d be out of the limelight but that’s probably the point, management want to see how he responds to measured expectations.
Carlos Rodriguez won the final stage last year but has tended to use this race as part of his pre-Tour build up rather than set out to grab it. But knowing the Tour might be beyond him what can he do here and will he perpetuate the more dynamic way of racing we’ve seen from Ineos this year? Even if he can make moves the time trial will be a small penalty relative to the names above.
Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) is better at time trials than he looks but the plan this summer is to go for exciting stage wins rather than grind out a top-10 overall. If anything losing time is a pre-requisite to stage victory as if he wants to attack the GC favourites on a mountain stage they can afford to let him ride away. Santiago Buitrago might do the same too and watch to see if they work off each other well, or not.
Ben Healy (EF Education-EF) has talked about becoming a stage race contender. You can see the incentives, a contract measured in millions rather than thousands to start with. But so far no GC bids this season, we’ll see but as ever if he can get away solo he’s hard to pull back and can climb and time trial with the best at times, it’s doing it day-in, day-out that’s harder.
Enric Mas (Movistar) can be consistent but hasn’t won a race since 2022. Ivan Romeo is one to watch as he has a background as a time triallist but climbs well.
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Pogačar |
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Vingegaard |
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– |
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Jorgenson, Evenepoel |
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Rodriguez |
Further notes:
- the weather might be harder to predict than the race but so far it looks good for the week, sunny and warm
- Covid was an issue a year ago; riders at the Dauphiné but elsewhere at altitude camps seemed to catch it in June. The r-rate in Europe had started to rise in May to 1.2 but is back at 1 and with relatively low prevalence for now it’s less of an issue
- the good news on TV is the race timings have been all over the place in past years because the race has clashed with the tennis at Roland Garros. No more and most days the stage arrives around 17.15 CEST except for tomorrow/Sunday.
- the bad news is that there’s only about 90 minutes live a day
- Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) rides with a broken wrist. Now this isn’t some desperate salvage operation for him or the team, the question is form and we’ll see if he’s here to hone his pedal stroke or bag wins, some days suit if he’s in form
- Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and his size 47 shoes are here for the sprints but he’ll have his work cut out as there are climbs to challenge him along the way
- 18 year old Paul Seixas (Decathlon-Ag2r) starts. He’s apparently progressed ahead of expectations so gets to see his idols up close and race on some home roads rather than do the U23 Giro but this is very much about experience, as in learning from mistakes, rather than results.
Paul Seixas and Matthew Brennan, under 20 and already having a large impact this year. Interesting they seem to both be sprinters, when for years the youth talent has been climbers (IDT) or TT (Tarling, Evenepoel). I guess the most recent young sprinter to break through would be Arnaud de Lie although he has been sidelined this year with injury. (Crazy that Evenepoel is still eligible for the white jersey.)
I wouldn’t say Seixas is a sprinter, more a climber/stage racer with a fast finish, whereas I’d say Brennan is a sprinter who can get over the climbs. Both very exciting talents either way, interesting to see how Seixas goes at this level.
On a side note, I have size 48 shoes and it has not seemed to help my sprinting ability
Are you sure about Seixas being a sprinter? I have heard many suggest he is the next great hope for a French Tour winner (in a few years time). Someone who can climb, time-trial, and has a reasonable punch. Of course, he is only 18 so nobody can be sure how he will develop.
He’s versatile but not a sprinter and his test next week is for the GC, in his own words to L’Equipe today.
A more general observation is that is riders can often do it all in the juniors or U23s have to chose when they turn pro. I used to use the example of Tom Boonen finishing second in the U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège; this year we have Paul Magnier who is a sprinter but until a just a bit more than year ago fancied his chances at the U23 Giro overall, only to sensibly settle for the sprints rather than take on Jarno Widar, Pablo Torres, Matthys Rondel etc on the Finestre but he thought he had the range until he started to train with pro climbers.
For reference, Pogacar has raced 14 days this year so far, while Vingegaard has raced 10 days.
Some days just weigh much more than others under any possible respect…
14 days across ten weeks as opposed to ten days across four weeks.
What a sublime opening! Hoping for a more serious rivalry between Tadej and Pog this July and I expect we will see a proper preview of their form here.
Here’s hoping july would bring more than a Tadej vs Pog rivalry ;).
Tadej riding reasonably as a part of the train vs Pog tearing time bonuses and smashing stages?
Pogacar seems to have the Tour team for support, minus the climbers. If Vingegaard really wants to “have-a-go” then maybe his team can set a furious pace on stage 7 and see if Pogi can be dropped: Pogi is almost sure to be isolated if Visma’s climbing support is in reasonable form.
I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but considering Visma’s past performances with Vingegaard at races other than the Tour, I would be very surprised to see him really going for the win. Add to this that Pogi will likely try to win and the course suits him well, and we have a recipe for a drab encounter. I’m hoping that either a) another lesser rider (Lenny?) does something exceptional to shake up the race, or b) Jorgenson has amazing form and Visma is able to do something interesting with team tactics.
Blankets wet or dry are ok. But remember Vingegaard blitzed this race in 2023 on his way to winning the Tour that year, taking two stages and two second places. He’d like to get back into this groove; outside of TTs and TTTs he hasn’t won since Le Lioran in the Tour last summer.
I know Jonas CAN win, I just wonder how hard he and his team will try to battle Pogi. The head-to-head matchups are so rare. And Stage 7 seems to be the only stage where Jonas might have the advantage(?).
In general terms, I actually remember him going deep on several occasions with no clear reason but pushing hard, the most manifest being probably Ti-Ad 2024, where he blew himself out on Petrano despite the long range solo the day before. Same for Ti-Ad 2022 and not really for the Carpegna stage as much as for the Bellante one, battling hard for a few second in an unfavourable uphill dash on modest gradients.
And, I also remember Vingo fighting hard to keep Pogi’s wheel on Civiglio in 2022, blowing up big time, the sort of thing you try only if you’re interested in winning… albeit I’ll admit that he’d later wouldn’t sprint for that 11th place.
Of course I’d agree that given the submarine tactics so appreciated in Visma, as for 2023 it’s really hard to estimate his actual form level at Itzulia or Dauphiné.
After 2021, Visma has always had an athlete going hard for the Dauphiné… whether he was the real TDF candidate is a different matter. Anyway, in 2022 and 2023 Vingo always offered solid performances, surely *not* top TDF shape but intense GC racing all the same.
Pogi, OTOH, until this season typically had followed the old “traditional” approach of some low-key relaxed racing in June.
What we’re going to see from tomorrow on and then in July, given the set of possible combinations of shape/commitment/training programme/desire to be competitive.. looks right now extremely “mysterious” and greatly interesting…
Err, that’s how it works. It’s training/fine tuning for the Tour. Sometimes it’s not about the win, others it is – as IR says in his comment about Vinny – depending on circumstances.
Lenny Martinez’s form against the best will be of interest as will Remco’s.
I’m guessing Visma will be happy if Vingegaard can sit on Pogacar’s wheel. They’ll know at least what to expect at the Tour.
+1 You said it better than me
Valmeinier 1800, from Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, looks exciting, finishing stage 7. Enzo Paleni just set the Strava KOM about a month ago at 50:41. I wonder who will have the KOM June 14!
With Derek Gee il sottomarino last month Vingegaard becoming il sottomarinetto is at least a little less uncharitable than the sickly prince.
I suspect a further proposal will emerge from recent photos of him training sleeveless with hairy legs and anklet socks…
Sport of any kind rarely conforms to the pre event forecasts. Maybe the podium will look like the one in the the first picture more likely it will not. An incident of some sort or a simple loss of form is a very high probability for at least one of the assumed top three,
8.50 sign in start and 10.00 start for stage 1, so hope all were tucked in early last night!