Tadej Pogačar was enjoying his off-season on a beach in the Seychelles when the 2025 Tour de France route was unveiled in Paris on Tuesday but he seems to like the mountainous route and even a return to the Col de la Loze.
Apparently speaking to L'Equipe before his holidays, Pogačar described the route as '"pretty brutal," but was keen to remind people that he has won the Tour three times on similar terrain.
Pogačar won the 2024 Tour de France with a dominant display from start to finish, as Jonas Vingegaard eventually struggled after his rushed return from serious injury. Pogačar beat his big rivals by 6:27, with Remco Evenepoel a distant third at 9:18.
He and his UAE Team Emirates squad have still to confirm their major goals for 2025. However, a fourth Tour victory seems the priority, perhaps followed by the Vuelta a España.
The 2025 Tour includes summit finishes at Hautacam, Superbagnères, Mont Ventoux, the Col de la Loze and La Plagne, plus the 11km mountain time trial up to Peyragudes in the Pyrenees. The opening week offers chances to the sprinters but also several uphill finishes and so opportunities for Pogačar to attack.
"It starts with a long first week in the north of France. That'll be interesting because there are tricky stages, there's also the 33 km time trial, which looks pretty nice," an upbeat Pogačar said.
"We then cross France towards the Pyrenees, with the first rest day in Toulouse, before attacking some nice stages.
"I especially like the Peyragudes time trial, I've never done that climb in a time trial before. It'll be interesting to see what happens but I've had good results in the Pyrenees in the past."
Vingegaard briefly distanced Pogačar on Mont Ventoux in 2021 but he then closed the gap and went on to win the Tour by 5:20. The Slovenian fears the Géant de Provence but seems keen to target it in 2025.
The stage to Mont Ventoux is mostly flat but the climb is very hard, it's for the pure climbers," Pogačar said. "I love that climb, it's different to anything else. It'll be even more interesting to see what happens as it comes after the second rest day."
Pogačar famously cracked on the Col de la Loze in the 2023 Tour de France, saying "I'm gone, I'm dead" over race radio. He will perhaps be able to cancel that moment of defeat in 2025, when stage 18 climbs to the 2,304m-high summit via Courchevel and a 26.2km climb at 6.5%.
"The Alps are always hard. The stage to the Col de la Loze is perhaps the Queen stage because it has such a high amount of climbing."
"I think it'll be brutal," Pogačar said of the climb and the whole 2025 Tour de France.
Pogačar recently signed a new contract with UAE Team Emirates that runs until 2030. He has already raced with the team for six years but appears as hungry as ever.
"He is a born competitor. He has been working hard for five years, I do not see how he could not get motivated again. And the terrain suits him well, doesn't it?" Bernard Hinault suggested to L'Equipe.
UAE Team Emirates are convinced that Pogačar is still motivated following his dominant 2024 season.
"After a very special, exceptional, season for the whole team, it's not easy to reproduce that. But I'm not worried about Tadej," directeur sportif Andrej Hauptman told L'Equipe.
"I've known him since he was a junior and he's always been one of the best at motivating himself and finding new goals. He's special: even in a small, flat race, which doesn't suit him, he'll try to do something that no one expects.
"Sometimes we even have to tell him not to sprint! Maybe even if a race doesn't suit him at all, he'll want to win it even more."
