The 2025 Tour de France may be months away, but we already know the overall contenders that will battle on a mountainous route next July.
Standout stages on next summer's route include a 33km time trial in the first week, five summit finishes, including Hautacam, Mont Ventoux, and the Col de la Loze, and an 11km mountain time trial up to Peyragudes in the Pyrenees.
Even with such a long time to wait until the best of the men's peloton do battle in France, we already have a good idea of who will be battling for the yellow jersey, the podium and the top 10 at the 112th edition of the Tour.
There's no racing going on at the moment, so this isn't yet the Cyclingnews form guide, just a first indication of who to expect at the top of the standings next summer.
1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)
There was no doubt as to the identity of the man in the top spot. Even with so long to go before the Tour kicks off in Lille, Tadej Pogačar is the overwhelming favourite to capture a fourth yellow jersey in 2025.
The Slovenian swept all before him in 2024, taking 25 wins in 58 race days, including Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Il Lombardia, the world road title and the Giro d'Italia – not to mention six stages and the overall title at the Tour de France.
He won the race by just over six minutes, beating his biggest rival Jonas Vingegaard comprehensively, though the Dane did endure a less-than-ideal run-in to the race following his horrendous Itzulia Basque Country crash.
Things should be closer next time around, but with nobody getting close to Pogačar throughout the 2024 season, he's the easy number-one pick.
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike)
Two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar have dominated the five most recent Tours. The Dane finished second to the Slovenian in 2021 and 2024, and he looks like the only rider who might stop the UAE Team Emirates superstar from claiming number four.
Following Pogačar's first two triumphs in 2020 and 2021, Vingegaard proved to be the only person who could beat him into second place. Four years ago, he cracked his great rival on the Col du Granon and at Hautacam, while 2023 saw him do the same again on the Col de la Loze.
Obviously, he was unable to pull off similar feats this year given the long recovery from his Itzulia crash but he proved himself the clear second-best rider in the race notwithstanding.
Next year Vingegaard looks once again to stand the best chance of putting Pogačar on the second step of the podium. He'll have to avoid the bad luck and crashes that derailed this year's preparation.
3. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep)
Given that Pogačar and Vingegaard have accumulated nine Tour starts between them, including those five overall victories, we know what they're capable of achieving in the race.
It's a different case for Remco Evenepoel, who took on his first Tour de France this past summer. Already a Vuelta a España winner, double world champion and two-time Monument winner, the Belgian came into the race looking to prove himself on the biggest stage of them all.
He secured a podium spot in Nice as well as the white young rider's jersey and a time trial stage win at the end of the first week.
It was an impressive debut but there is work to do ahead of next summer.
Evenepoel can be proud of being the third-best rider on his first outing in France, though there are minutes to find in the mountains if he wants to add the yellow jersey to his collection.
He finished the race 9:18 down on Pogačar, the kind of gap that will likely take more than one year of progress to bridge.
4. Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe leader Primož Roglič can come away from his first year with the team pleased to add titles at the Vuelta a España and Critérium du Dauphiné to his palmares.
The major blemish on his season, however, came in the form of another DNF at the Tour de France, his third in a row. Two crashes in as many days saw him shed time before pulling out of the race ahead of stage 13.
The 35-year-old was already lying in fourth overall before then, having lost time to his main rivals both on the hilly stage to Bologna, on the stage 7 time trial and on the uphill finish at Le Lioran.
The big four at the Tour can realistically be separated into two distinct tiers for now, with Roglič and Evenepoel in the second.
Roglič will first have to avoid the race-ending crashes before any podium hopes can materialise.
5. The super-domestique contenders
Such is the strength of the supporting cast surrounding the 'big four' that we could easily fill out the entire rest of the top 10 with riders from UAE Team Emirates, Visma-Lease a Bike, Soudal-QuickStep and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
The 2024 Tour saw four of the seven top-10 places outside the podium trio taken up by their own helpers as João Almeida, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease A Bike) captured fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth places.
It says something about the balance of power in the sport when other team leaders are struggling to beat the second and third-in-command riders at the teams of the top four contenders.
No doubt a selection of these same super-domestiques will be on hand to take home some of the top placings in 2025, while the likes of Aleksandr Vlasov, Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Simon Yates and Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease A Bike) are among the other candidates to do so.
6. Ben O'Connor (Jayco-AlUla)
Australia's Ben O'Connor rounded out the season as the fourth-ranked rider in the world, according to the UCI rankings. His season highlights for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale included fourth at the Giro d'Italia and second at both the Vuelta a España and the Worlds road race.
After four years with the French team, he'll be moving on to Australian squad Jayco-AlUla for 2025, the first time he's raced with his 'home' team, where he will have full leadership following the departure of Simon Yates.
O'Connor is unlikely to add to his Vuelta podium at the Tour next season, given the presence of the 'big four', but he has already shown that he is comfortable in the top 10, having scored a fourth place at the Tour three years ago.
Given his stellar 2024 campaign, he slots in as the best of the rest outside of the superstars and their super teams.
7. Enric Mas (Movistar)
Spaniard Enric Mas has been a reliable Grand Tour contender for Movistar reaching back to 2018. Since that first Vuelta a España podium place, he's gone on to score three more in Spain plus four further top-six placings across the Tour and Vuelta.
He's known for his steady racing style rather than an explosive acceleration, and so has scored just five wins in his career to date, with one of those coming on the Grand Tour stage, back in the 2019 Vuelta.
As such, he's not set to be among the top contenders for the yellow jersey next summer, should he take on the Tour. Instead, look to Mas to ride solidly en route to another top-10 placing.
His history and reliability (albeit with two DNFs and a 19th to show for his most recent three Tour starts) means he slots in at seventh place for now.
8. Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers)
Ineos Grenadiers haven't exactly had a lot to shout about in 2024, finishing up the year in seventh place on the UCI teams ranking with 14 wins. The once-dominant stage racing squad could only point to Geraint Thomas' distant third place at the Giro d'Italia as their Grand Tour success.
Elsewhere, Spaniard Carlos Rodriguez was their best performer at the Tour and Vuelta, finishing up in seventh and 10th place.
The 23-year-old finished fifth on his Tour debut in 2023, just over two minutes away from the final podium spot but was never in contention for the top three this time around and finished 25 minutes down.
He's still young and there's still time to progress and improve – and he's the man most likely to get back on the podium from Ineos' current crop of riders, which includes Egan Bernal and Tom Pidcock.
9. Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech)
Derek Gee has been one of the top breakthrough riders of the past two seasons. In 2023, the Canadian was one of the stars of the Giro d'Italia, racking up four second places from seven breakaways en route to second in the points and mountain classification.
This season, the 27-year-old showed his growth into an all-round stage racer, taking third place at the Critérium du Dauphiné before racing into the top 10 at the Tour.
He's one of the stars of a resurgent Israel-Premier Tech team which was relegated from the WorldTour in 2022 after packing their roster with highly paid but veteran riders. Now, along with the likes of Stevie Williams and Corbin Strong, he's leading the team's charge back to cycling's top tier.
Given his progression from 2022 to 2023 and the season just gone, who can say what he'll pull out of the bag in 2025. But should he choose to take on the Tour again, he'll certainly be a favourite for another top 10 slot – something few would've predicted this time last year.
10. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ)
With Romain Bardet, Kévin Vauquelin and Anthony Turgis all winning stages at the 2024 Tour, French cycling had plenty to celebrate. Yet the home nation had little to boast about when it came to the final GC.
Their riders who had finished in the top 10 previously were nowhere close this time around. Guillaume Martin's 13th place was the best he, Bardet, David Gaudu and Valentin Madouas could muster.
Gaudu has finished fourth and ninth at the Tour previously, while his new Groupama-FDJ teammate Martin also has two top 10 results to his name. We'll list Gaudu as the man most likely to repeat the feat in 2025. His sixth place at the Vuelta a España showed he is far from a spent GC force following his anonymous 65th place at the Tour.
Barring a momentous leap forward from Lenny Martinez, who departs Groupama-FDJ for Bahrain Victorious, Gaudu figures to be France's big hope next summer.
Best of the rest
- Pello Bilbao, Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious)
- Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek)
- Egan Bernal, Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers)
- Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost)
- Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale)
- Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ)
