Tour de France 2025 reached its midway point with an unexpected leader of the General Classification, the Irishman Ben Healy winning the yellow jersey. However, most pundits believe that the winner will come out of the rivalry between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, which is reaching new levels.
Both cyclists have dominated Tour de France in the last five years. Tadej Pogačar (Slovenian, 26 years old, UAE Team Emirates XRG) won in 2020, 2021, and 2024, and Jonas Vingegaard (Danish, 28 years old, Visma-Lease a bike) won in 2022 and 2023. When they didn't win, the other was runner-up every year except 2020. It therefore highly expected that the same situation will repeat this year, although Vingegaard has not been the best since his devastating fall in spring 2024, and many pundits doubt he will be enough to catch Pogacar.
However, what could have been an intense, contested but healthy rivalry is getting more and more unfriendly each passing stage, as RMC Sport notes, with more insults and disrespectful manners between the racers and the two teams.
"There's also been a lot of tension in the past years between UAE and Visma", Pogacar said, quoted on The Guardian. "When you compete for the biggest race, there will be tension but we have big respect towards each other, too".
"When you finish a stage you congratulate each other, regardless of what happened on the road. That's the beauty of sport in a way, you've left it all out on the field, you're a competitor, but you cross the line and then you show respect to each other afterwards", he added, explaining the "f**k you" he shouted to Vingegaard in the Tour 2024.