The Japan Times - Tour de France contenders and dark horses

AFP Sport takes a look at the key competitors this year:

Tadej Pogacar (SLO/Team UAE Emirates)

The ever-improving 2024 triple crown winner is once again the man to beat at the Tour de France. The passionate competitor who always races to win is gifted with an unanswerable uphill kick, world-class handling skills and a deep reserve of mental and physical stamina. He has won the Tour de France three times (2020, 2021 and 2024), the Giro d'Italia, the world title and nine of the one-day monument races. A self-described "good boy from a good family taking no short cuts in life", he has both swagger and modesty to go with his new deal worth 50 million euros ($58.6 million) over the next six years.

Jonas Vingegaard (DEN/Visma)

The softly-spoken and slightly-built Vingegaard is the man with the plan and has beaten Pogacar hands down twice to prove it. After a near-death crash at the Tour of the Basque Country in 2024, he rode beyond expectations at the Tour to come second, due as much to tactical acumen as to force. He grew up in a remote corner of Denmark racing into bleak coastal winds, but is most at home in intense heat in the high mountains. Of the favourites he is the most adept climber and descender and has made a virtue of meticulous tactical planning and patience. Small wonder that "the little guy" emerged from a big squad packed with climbers as the expansive-thinking Visma's lead man.

Remco Evenepoel (BEL/Soudal Quick-Step)

Who could forget Evenepoel's iconic moments at the Paris Olympic Games, posing at the finish line with the Eiffel tower behind him as he added the road race gold to the time-trial title. He had been tipped to win both at Tokyo, before falling into a ravine and taking two years to get back on form. Evenepoel can now target a Tour de France title, but may need to change teams to a Grand Tour-minded outfit to do so. Long-range stamina and mind-bending acceleration are the skills that mark him out from his rivals. He can certainly expect to defend the best young rider's white jersey and third-place finish he achieved in 2024.

Primoz Roglic (SLO/Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

Possibly the strongest athlete in the field, time is running out for the 35-year-old Roglic to bury his 2020 sorrows by winning a Tour de France. His last-day meltdown on the Planche des Belles Filles time trial as Pogacar snatched the title was an excruciating spectacle. Roglic discovered cycling while doing physio for a harrowing ski-jump accident, and perhaps lacks the handling reflexes Pogacar learned as a child. His new team Red Bull have given him carte blanche at the Grande Boucle, assuming he can avoid the rotten luck that has blighted his Tour de France campaigns. He would make a popular winner to crown a career that features four Vuelta a Espana wins and one Giro title.

Dark horses

Egan Bernal in 2019, Pogacar in 2020 and Vingegaard in 2022 all upset the odds to win unforgettable titles. So who are the riders to watch out for in 2025 with ambitions to upset the established order? Should something happen to either Pogacar or Vingegaard, the pair are backed up by Adam and Simon Yates respectively. The British twins are both noted climbers and descenders, and Simon has already won the Giro and the Vuelta. Beyond the big four teams there is also sleeping giant Ineos with Spanish climber Carlos Rodriguez, Lidl-Trek's Danish all-rounder Mattias Skjelmose and Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious, who would be a first French winner in four decades.

K.Nakajima--JT