Tadej Pogacar completes Criterium du Dauphine win after three stage victories

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Tadej Pogacar has won the Criterium du Dauphine by 59 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard, reinforcing his favourite tag for the upcoming Tour de France.

The 26-year-old won three stages en route to securing overall victory, taking last weekend’s bumpy opening stage as well as stages six and seven in the high Alps.

Traditionally, the eight-day long Dauphine is seen as a warm-up for next month’s Tour. This year saw arguably its strongest ever line-up, featuring the three favourites for overall victory at the Tour in UAE Team Emirates’ Pogacar, Visma-Lease a Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard, and Soudal Quickstep’s Remco Evenepoel.

A strangely sub-par performance in Wednesday’s individual time-trial led to speculation that Pogacar was not in top form after a busy spring programme. Evenepoel won the stage, 49 seconds ahead of Pogacar, while Vingegaard was 28 seconds faster than his Slovenian rival.

“I didn’t do the perfect TT today,” Pogacar said after that stage. “I think I probably got the pacing slightly wrong.”

But Friday and Saturday’s stages were a clear demonstration that Pogacar has maintained his early-season form, which saw him win two Monuments in the Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, as well as the prestigious Strade Bianche and Fleche Wallone.

On Friday’s stage six, he blew up the race by attacking at the base of the climb to Combloux, seizing the yellow jersey by taking over a minute on the Dane. Saturday saw him repeat these antics, soloing away with 12km left of the queen stage to earn his 98th professional win, becoming the most successful active rider in the peloton.

He was in with an outside chance of winning Sunday’s stage eight to claim three consecutive victories, having ridden away from the other main contenders alongside Vingegaard with 7km remaining — but was denied by Frenchman Lenny Martinez, the only survivor of the day’s breakaway.

Finishing third in the general classification was 24-year-old Florian Lipowitz, who impressed on his way to winning the best young rider competition.

Elsewhere, popular Frenchman Romain Bardet brought the curtain down on his 13 year professional career, which has seen him finish on the Tour podium twice, as well as winning four individual stages at the race.

🙌 Le bel hommage du peloton pour @romainbardet au départ de la 8ème et dernière étape ! 😍

🙌 A beautiful tribute from the peloton to @romainbardet at the start. 😍#Dauphiné pic.twitter.com/6HJQ8TFvSa

— Critérium du Dauphiné (@dauphine) June 15, 2025

Close to winning stage 17 of last month’s Giro d’Italia, showing his enduring ability, he remained in the lead group until 14km remaining, before slipping off its back with a wave to the camera.

How ominous is Pogacar’s form?

The 48 hours between the TT and the high mountains may go down as the best two days of Pogacar’s rivals’ summer. Strangely muted in finishing fourth behind both his main rivals and Visma’s Matteo Jorgensen, the Slovenian appeared at his limits.

But Pogacar rode away without leaving the saddle during the first two days in the mountains, easily separating from Vingegaard and Evenepoel, both of whom could only hang onto his back wheel for seconds rather than minutes.

Even more ominously? The watts per kilo he produced were not even up there with his personal bests — implying he still has another level that could be reached during the Tour. On Saturday’s stage seven, in particular, he appeared to be riding to a threshold tempo and was still drawing away from the field.

During both the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Tour, where Pogacar lost out to Vingegaard, it was commonly considered that Pogacar’s main weakness was extreme heat. That problem appears to be solved — his form in the mountains came over three boiling days in the Alps.

Could Pogacar reach another level in the Tour? (Eric Lalmand/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)

Was there any encouragement for Vingegaard?

Vingegaard’s build-up has been very different to Pogacar. While his rival raced at almost every opportunity during the spring, Vingegaard was last seen during Paris-Nice in March, where he was forced to withdraw with a concussion.

Animating last weekend’s opening stage with an uncharacteristically aggressive attack, which demonstrated his explosiveness, the benefits of his long training block in the Sierra Nevada looked apparent. He will have been pleased with Wednesday’s time-trial as well, where he was less than 30 seconds behind world and Olympic champion Evenepoel, and comfortably clear of Pogacar.

Then came the mountains. Though Pogacar was a class apart, Vingegaard was still well ahead of the rest of the field. Though the ease with which Pogacar pulled away was concerning to those anticipating a blockbuster Tour, Vingegaard appeared content to ride at his own pace rather than completely empty the tank.

He is at his best on long climbs over long stages rather than the shorter efforts of the Dauphine — though he is decidedly second-favourite for the Tour, nothing from this week’s racing should count him out of contention.

Who else impressed?

Lipowitz’s third-place finish raises questions over his role at Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe during the Tour. Appearing capable of a top ten finish next month, will he be placed purely in service of presumptive team leader Primoz Roglic, or will he retain the freedom to pursue his own overall hopes?

Jorgensen showed impressive legs to remain with Vingegaard until late in each mountain stage, as well as beating Pogacar in the TT — the American will be Visma’s super-domestique at the Tour, but would well merit team leadership in almost any other squad.

But the real excitement in France came from Paul Seixas, an 18-year-old climber who is already being discussed as a future Grand Tour winner.

Seixas in action during the fifth stage (Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

Racking up top ten finishes across both the mountain stages and the time-trial, the youngest rider in the race ended up finishing eighth on GC, a hugely impressive result given the calibre of the field.

He will not be riding the Tour this year, but the teenager has already been anointed as the man that could one day end the 40-year wait for a French winner of the race. Coming on Bardet’s final day as a professional rider, the man who has arguably come closest in recent years to ending that drought, it felt like a passing of the baton.

Overall standings:

Tadej Pogacar (SLO), UAE Team Emirates — 29h 19’46”

Jonas Vingegaard (DEN), Visma-Lease a Bike — +59

Florian Lipowitz (GER), Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe — +2.38

Remco Evenepoel (BEL), Soudal-Quickstep — + 4.21

Tobias Halland Johannessen (NOR), Uno-X — +6.12

Matteo Jorgensen (USA), Visma-Lease a Bike — +7.28

Enric Mas (ESP), Movistar — +7.57

Paul Seixas (FRA), Decathlon AG2R — +8.25

Carlos Rodriguez (ESP), INEOS Grenadiers — +8.57

Guillaume Martin (FRA), Groupama-FDJ — +10.01

(Top photo: Dario Belingheri/Getty Image

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