Tadej Pogačar continued his dominance on the queen stage of the 2025 Critérium du Dauphiné, dropping Jonas Vingegaard on Montée de Valmeinier and again confirming he is on a different level.
It was the queen stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, featuring three major climbs and a summit finish on Montée de Valmeinier (16.5 km at 6.8%). The stage was exhausting, with the GC group riding at a high pace over the Col de la Madeleine (5.7 ᵉW/kg for 64 minutes) and Col de la Croix de Fer, which sits at high altitude. Emmanuel Buchmann burned 3,282 kilojoules over 3.5 hours at a rate of 15.79 kJ/kg/h, highlighting the intensity of the day.
The stage itself wasn’t particularly eventful. Romain Bardet, caught from the breakaway, reached the summit of Valmeinier 1800 as his father watched live. Visma | Lease a Bike had no answer for Tadej Pogačar, who attacked with 11.9 km to go, this time out of the saddle and clearly exploding harder than on previous stages, successfully dropping Jonas Vingegaard. In the end, Pogačar beat the Dane by only 14 seconds, but that gap was limited because he eased off in the final kilometers, lowering his average power. Florian Lipowitz showed another strong performance, finishing third.
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Pogačar produced a solid effort on Valmeinier 1800, especially considering the conditions. He did 6.53 ᵉW/kg for the full 39:31 climb and 6.74 ᵉW/kg for the 28:26 segment following his attack. His average watts would have been even higher if he hadn’t eased up near the end.
When adjusted for altitude, the performance looks even more impressive: 7.11 ᵉW/kg for 28:26 post-attack and 6.84 ᵉW/kg for the full 39:31. As mentioned in the previous article, Pogačar is still far from his peak form, he is clearly saving his legs for a more serious race and is not pushed to his limit.
It’s still hard to comprehend how Pogi not at his peak form is significantly better than a peak Chris froome. Whenever he rides in anger he basically gets a top 20 best ever climbing performance. Madness!
Or should I say a top 40 climbing performance!
How come THJ has a lower result than Remco in both these graphs when he finished ahead of him? Were they not together at the start? It states that the weight is calculated as 60kg for everyone? I am guessing I misunderstand something. If anyone knows and can educate me, I would appreciate it!
I am assuming that the calculation takes drafting into account. Tobias Halland Johannesen took benefit from Remco pulling.
Ahh, that might be! How they calculate that is beyond me, though.