Participants Critérium du Dauphiné 2025 | Rodriguez and Evenepoel know their teammates ahead of 'Bardet's last race'

Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel... Everyone who finished on the podium of last year's Tour is on the provisional start list for the French stage race. This is great news for cycling fans, who are eager to see how the field is shaping up ahead of the Tour de France. How will Pogacar bounce back from his time off after another incredible spring? And how well has Vingegaard recovered from his crash in Paris-Nice?

The next question is: will it mainly be a battle between these three stars? The Dauphiné can count on many more top riders at the start. Carlos Rodríguez, Enric Mac, Mattias Skjelmose, Matteo Jorgenson, Sepp Kuss, Santiago Buitrago, and Florian Lipowitz are also on the provisional start list. The fans will mainly focus on Lenny Martinez, Guillaume Martin, and Romain Bardet in France.

It will be a special week for the latter. The 34-year-old Bardet will be riding the last race of his professional cycling career in his home country. He has come close several times in the Giro, but the Frenchman from Picnic PostNL hopes to triumph again in France. He already won a stage in the Dauphiné in 2015, when he was the strongest in the fifth stage to Pra-Loup.

Last year, Primoz Roglic won the overall victory, so we are looking for a successor to the Slovenian. The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe lead rider crashed several times in the Giro and withdrew after another crash in the third week, so he will not participate. We will see him again in the Tour, where he will compete against the riders who are participating in the Dauphiné.