Rasmussen thinks ASO is sending Vingegaard a cruel message with 2027 Tour de France route: 'Bookmakers are rarely wrong'

In recent years, we’ve consistently seen editions of the Tour de France with a lot of elevation gain. In 2024, ASO even included Mont Ventoux, Hautacam, and Col de la Loze as finish locations: all climbs where Vingegaard had proven himself superior to his Slovenian rival in previous years.

In the end, Pogačar managed to win the Tour in both 2025 and 2026, bringing his total to five. For the 2027 edition, ASO is taking a different approach again, with relatively few truly difficult mountain stages and, instead, many more flat time-trial kilometres. The hope is that this will keep the race exciting for longer.

Rasmussen, who is now an analyst for Viaplay, has also noticed this. “I think it looks like ASO has acknowledged that Jonas Vingegaard is no longer Pogacar’s main challenger. They’ll have to take a different approach. That approach points toward Paul Seixas and Remco Evenepoel,” he says, referring to the first- and third-place finishers in the World Time Trial Championships.

"I definitely think Jonas would have preferred one more mountain finish and one fewer time trial, or one time trial with elevation gain," said Rasmussen. Visma | Lease a Bike had already hinted at this in an initial analysis. “Compared to last year, I count fewer mountain finishes, and in my opinion, there could have been a few more,” said Head of Racing Marc Reef.

After the Tour de France route was announced, Rasmussen also stated that the 71-kilometre time trial would not work in favour of his compatriot Vingegaard. “Jonas has shown recently that he struggles more with flat time trials. In the Giro, he finished thirteenth, and in the Tour as well, he lost quite a bit of time whenever there was a flat time trial.”

"I actually think he'll finish outside the Tour podium," the former cyclist continued. "I place a lot of value on what the bookmakers expect, and they're rarely completely wrong."

At the betting agencies, Pogacar (odds of 1.25) is the favourite for the Tour de France, ahead of Seixas (4.50), Evenepoel (8.00), followed by Vingegaard (10.00) and Isaac del Toro (19.00). “And that makes sense. This Tour de France route isn’t going to be a walk in the park for Jonas.”