Tour de France 2025 - The GC favourites form guide 🇫🇷
Tracking the potential GC contenders following Paris-Nice and Tirreno Adriatico
The men’s Tour de France starts in 110 days, and after Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, we’ve seen the majority of the pre-race favourites race in 2025 - with one notable exception.
Starting from now, and over the coming months, I’ll run an updated form ladder that tracks the GC contenders as they build up for the big show in July.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Who have I missed, and how would you change the current order? There are no wrong answers - apart from the ones below, probably.
Thanks
Daniel 🫶
1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 🇸🇮
Best Tour de France result: Winner in 2020, 2021, 2024
Best result of 2025: UAE Tour winner (two stages), and Strade Bianche
The defending champion’s unstoppable form lasted throughout 2024 and it has shown no signs of abating this season with the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader dominating the UAE Tour with two stage wins and the overall, and a third victory in Strade Bianche a little over a week ago. Not even a crash, and a rejuvenated Tom Pidcock could dislodge an unstoppable outcome on the dirt roads in Tuscany and Pogačar remains the rider to beat for the foreseeable future. His team are dialled in, they’re even further ahead of Visma Lease a Bike than they were last year, and while July is still a long way off, Pogačar is the undisputed favourite. For the neutrals, it could be a very dull and predictable summer. Sorry.
2. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) 🇺🇸
Best Tour de France result: Top-ten in 2024
Best result of 2025: Paris-Nice overall winner
The American finished eighth in the Tour de France last year, and there’s no doubt that his stock continues to rise after a second consecutive win in Paris-Nice was sealed over the weekend. It can’t be forgotten that neither Pogačar, Roglič or Evenepoel were on the startlist in France but take nothing away from the fact that Jorgenson still had to fend off a deep level of opposition that included the ever-improving Florian Lipowitz and Joao Almeida. Jorgenson is probably focusing too much on the Spring Classics to be considered a viable GC option at this point. However, with Vingegaard out and still finding his form, the American has positioned himself as every bit as integral as the likes of the Yates brothers and Almeida. In the past that’s been enough to catapult a rider onto - or at least close to - the podium places. Expect the heavy hitters to march up this list come June, when we hit the Dauphine and Suisse, but for now Jorgenson deserves to be this far up. Simon Yates would have been on this list at the start of the year, but his crash in training ahead of Tirreno-Adriatico left him sitting outside the top ten in Italy and on our list.