Overview
- Tadej Pogacar arrives at the Tour widely viewed as the pre-race favorite after an exceptional early season and is positioned to try to equal the record of five overall wins.
- Jonas Vingegaard comes in as Pogacar’s principal rival following a strong first half of the year that included a dominant Giro d’Italia and a recovery from earlier crashes.
- The race will open with a team time trial that records each rider’s time individually, a format change organizers say highlights individual strength within the team event.
- The route includes three Pyrenean stages and an unusually hard penultimate stage finishing on Alpe d’Huez with 5,450 metres of climbing, which organisers say can overturn standings late in the race.
- Nineteen-year-old Paul Seixas has drawn intense public and director-level attention as a French prospect, and the five-year Pogacar–Vingegaard duopoly frames public interest and the Tour’s late suspense.