'He's the best climber in the world' – Tadej Pogačar praises Tour de France rival Jonas Vingegaard as rivalry enters next chapter

The i's are dotted, the t's are crossed, and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is ready to start his pursuit of a fourth Tour de France title in 2025 as the heavy favourite.

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) will once again be his main rival, with the pair winning the past five yellow jerseys between them, and it's set to be 21 stages of ferocious uphill attacking, mind games and a lot of respect on the road.

The defending champion is definitely ready for that rivalry to renew, but he did have some positive words for his rival Vingegaard, describing him curiously as "the best climber in the world at the moment." Having well beaten him comfortably at last year's Tour and the pre-race Dauphiné, was it mind games, or simply Pogačar's typical friendly self? The Tour will reveal all.

Pogačar was his typical laid-back self as he arrived for his pre-Tour press conference at the Opéra de Lille, with the grand interior contrasting well with his rainbow jersey, knowing full well the pressure on him to once again deliver for his super team.

"The last 5 years were quite intense between me, Jonas, and others as well, with great competition, rivalry, and I think this year is more or less the same," Pogačar told a big room of reporters on Thursday evening.

"It will be interesting to see if we can exchange it again or not, but you never know with new guys coming in, someone can surprise, and a lot can happen in such a long race.

"But I'm looking forward to racing against Jonas again. I think he's in great shape. For me, it's been a great season, so far perfect and going here to the Tour as one of the favourites is an honour and I'm pleased. I hope I can live up to the expectations."

After a practically perfect approach and complete domination of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Pogačar is the odds-on favourite to come away with the win, but the first 10 days of the race will be essential to doing that.

While there are punchy opportunities, a time trial, and a hellish stage to Le Mont Dore on day 10, it's an opening phase filled with sprint stages and potential ways to lose the race before even making it to the mountains.

"The first week of the Tour is always one of the most intense, nervous weeks," he said. "You can quite easily lose the Tour de France in the first 10 days until the rest day, but I can see it also as an opportunity.

"My goal should be to gain time, but the first week you just need to take care, not screw up the whole Tour and just focus, save the legs for the last week, and see how it goes hopefully without any bad luck or sort of incidents to survive the first week."

The start of the race marks the next chapter in the rivalry between Pogačar and Vingegaard, as well as between their respective teams, UAE and Visma, which is set to be one of the key storylines of the race. Several incidents between their riders have threatened to bubble over in recent seasons.

Pogačar was questioned over the moment in the new series of Netflix's Tour de France Unchained, where he swore at Vingegaard during the gravel stage of last year's race. But one rider from the respective teams also received a yellow card after coming shoulder-to-shoulder at the front of the peloton.

The world champion put it down to 'The heat of the moment', but the next three weeks will all be about one team defeating the other and doing everything in their power to do so. It's fiery, but respectful.

"Of course it's not nice to flip off somebody, but I think in all the sports, sometimes in the heat of the moment, you say something that you might regret after," admitted Pogačar.

"A lot of guys say bad words all the time in the peloton when it's so stressful. Sometimes it comes naturally to the rider to scream and be frustrated; it just happens.

"It's normal in the sport, and, of course, there's been a lot of tension in the past years between UAE and Visma, and when you're competing for the biggest race, of course, there's going to be tension, but we all have big respect towards each other.

"That's the beauty of the sport: you leave it all on the field, compete, cross the line and then after the race, you show respect to each other, normally that's the case."

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