The Japan Times - Favourites keep apart in lead up to Tour de France

Four-time champion Tadej Pogacar will be aiming for a record-equalling fifth success but he is likely to face stiff competition from a rejuvenated two-time former winner Jonas Vingegaard and teenage prodigy Paul Seixas.

But with all three opting for a very different pre-Tour build-up, cycling fans will have to wait until the Grand Boucle itself to watch the favourites go head-to-head in a stage race.

It is a curious feature this season, in which cycling's best stage racers have largely managed to avoid each other.

In fact, Pogacar, 27, and Vingegaard -- winners of the last six Tour de France editions between them -- have only faced each other once since last year's race, at the one-day European Championships in October.

Having just won the Giro d'Italia, Vingegaard -- whose only other two events this year were the week-long Paris-Nice and Tour of Catalonia stage races -- will not race again before the Tour.

"We think we're on a good track for the Tour," Vingegaard said during the Giro.

"I think I also somehow evolved or took a bit of a step here during the Giro. That was the whole plan, then to try to take another step after the Giro," the 29-year-old added with the Tour starting on July 4 in Barcelona.

Pogacar has opted to warm up for the Tour at the week-long tours of Romandie, which he won last month, and Switzerland, which begins in two weeks' time.

His other five races this year were all one-day spring classics.

Frenchman Seixas, for his part, is heading to the Criterium du Dauphine, now known as the Tour of Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes.

He has at least raced Pogacar twice this year, finishing second to the Slovenian great at two one-day races: Strade Bianche in March and Liege-Bastogne-Liege a month later.

It's a far cry from last year when Pogacar, Vingegaard and German Florian Lipowitz finished in the top three spots at the Dauphine in June and then repeated the feat a month later at the Tour.

Seixas was also at the Dauphine last year, finishing eighth.

- Keeping control -

While the plethora of top-level cycling races does allow for the sport's best to avoid each other, it remains a rare phenomenon.

Pogacar and Vingegaard have usually faced each other in at least one stage race ahead of the Tour.

In 2021, Vinegaard was second to Primoz Roglic -- who was himself a Tour contender in those days -- at the Tour of the Basque Country with Pogacar third.

Pogacar beat Vingegaard into second place at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2022 and a year later won Paris-Nice with his Danish rival third.

The lack of pre-Tour clashes between top riders does not stop at the three favourites.

Lipowitz has opted to ride the low-key Tour of Slovenia as his warm-up event, while Remco Evenepoel, who was third in 2024, has decided to skip all the traditional pre-Tour races.

His last race was Liege-Bastogne-Liege at the end of April, meaning he will have spent 68 days without competing when he starts the Tour.

"We want to keep control of the workload, the stimulus, the progress and the process," Evenepoel's sporting director at Red Bull-Bora Hansgroher, Patxi Vila, told Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure.

It is not a total wash out ahead of the Tour when it comes to top riders coming face-to-face in major races, though.

Seixas will have some strong competition at the Tour Auvergne-Rhone Alpes.

Top 10 contenders in Briton Oscar Olney, Mexican Isaac del Toro, Juan Ayuso of Spain and Portugal's Joao Almeida will all line up in southeastern France alongside Seixas.

While none of those is expected to seriously challenge for Tour glory, they should be battling for a top five or even podium finish.

And as Almeida is the only one over 23, they will also provide a snapshot into a post-Pogacar and post-Vingegaard future of what a yellow jersey battle may look like.

M.Sugiyama--JT