Tour de France: Clash of styles as odd couple duel for title

TADE)J Pogacar and his great rival Jonas Vingegaard have won the past five editions of the Tour de France between them, and the chalk and cheese duo top the bill again at the 2025 Tour starting today.

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Here AFP takes a look at the strengths and weaknesses which could prove crucial in what should be another crowd-pleasing, seesaw struggle.

Pogacar

Ammunition box

The opening 10 days of the 2025 route revisit the scene of the swashbuckling Slovenian’s second triumph as it meanders along the narrow winding roads of Normandy and Brittany.

That opening section must be survived. “Something will happen to somebody, it always does here,” 2018 champion Geraint Thomas said at the time, and it ended up being the Welshman himself who fell foul of the section.

Pogacar has shown in the big one-day races he can handle all types of terrain.

Pogacar possesses an acceleration that will always lift him clear in a two-up tussle for bonus seconds at the finish line, a knack that appears to irk Vingegaard.