Tour de France astrology: day 1, Tadej and Jonas' birth charts

Okay, so I am just doing some initial notes comparing the astrology of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, the two leading cyclists in the Tour de France. A little bit of history: these guys have been going head to head for the last five years, and neither of them has ever finished lower than 2nd place in the Tour de France. Tadej Pogačar, who was a total prodigy and doesn't even appear to have to try at this sport, was 21 years old in 2020 when he entered his first Tour de France and won. The next year, Jonas Vingegaard, who was 24 at the time, took his first start in the Tour de France. Pogačar won; Vingegaard came in 2nd place. 2022: Vingegaard wins, Pogačar comes in second. 2023: Vingegaard wins again, Pogačar comes in 2nd again. 2024: Pogačar wins, Vingegaard comes in second. 2025: Pogačar wins again, Vingegaard comes in 2nd again. Unfortunately, neither of them have timed charts as far as my initial search goes. I'll be doing more research into this during the course of the race, but a couple interesting things: the first thing I noticed when I pulled both of these charts is that they both have Mars conjunct the North Node, or Rahu. It's a pretty wide conjunction for both. Jonas's is 15 degrees, but based on a workshop with Austin Coppock, we consider anything within that 18-degree span that would eclipse — it counts as a conjunction, even if they're by sign. Jonas is out of sign; Tadej's is in sign and is 9 degrees instead of 15. So they're not super tight orbs, but they do both have that Mars-Rahu signature — the "ravenous tiger," as Coppock calls it. It's an intense need to always be doing the most. Let's go to his Seven Celestial Venoms, NORWAC 2026 presentation: Mars North Node is the Hungry Tiger. Rahu's sweet poison is the joy of doing — they win until they don't. Ronda Rousey was one of his examples here, Simone Biles too, also Mars-Rahu. It's very much a "we're doing the most, we're winning, we love to win" signature. Both of them love to win. It's interesting that that signature is the same with both of them, given they're two years apart — Tadej Pogačar was born on essentially Jonas's first Mars return. Pogačar has a Leo Mars with that 9-degree conjunction with Rahu, which appears to be in Virgo, but it could be 29 Leo and zero Virgo — I'll have to look. Either way, Pogačar is undergoing his nodal reversal right now; he's in the thick of it, which can be a very difficult time for people. Conversely, Jonas Vingegaard, who is a couple years older, has already gone through his nodal reversal — his North Node is at 5 degrees of Libra, so that's over. He's now in the thick of his Saturn return; his Saturn is at 0 degrees Aries. So he's just gone through his Saturn return, essentially, and it looks like he's coming out swinging. I'm recording this after the first stage on Saturday, July 4th, and he just smashed the field, putting 12 seconds into Pogačar in the team time trial. So right off the bat things are looking better for Jonas, and being in the thick of that Saturn return could mean he's got discipline and training and has been focused — but he also just won the Giro. So he's looking to do the Giro-Tour double, whereas Pogačar, I believe, did not even race the Giro this year. So Jonas could be fresher, or he could be a little rusty. I was playing around with different chart orientations to see if we could pin down birth times for either of these guys, or at least get some working hypotheses. One thing that strikes me about Pogačar is that he's always having a blast when he's racing, at least when he's on form. He races because he has so much fun. It's interesting — he doesn't even seem to take it that seriously, and yet he just wipes the floor with everybody. He's head and shoulders above the rest of the field, except maybe for Jonas Vingegaard, who's the only one who can come close to touching him. But Pogačar is so nonchalant about it, such a good sportsman — he always congratulates the other guy. I've never seen him get flustered or upset. If he loses a race he's gracious. This guy is a class act. Vingegaard is also a class act — not saying otherwise — but he's more serious. He definitely puts his head down and focuses more, whereas Pogačar seems like he's playing and having fun. So given that, for Pogačar I want to put some planets in the 5th house, or at least have the ruler of the 5th in really good condition. His best essential dignity planet is a domicile Jupiter in Pisces. If that rules his 5th house, that gives him Scorpio rising — but that doesn't fit; he doesn't seem like a Scorpio rising to me, he's not reserved or secretive. So that rules out domicile Jupiter ruling the 5th, unless Pisces is his 5th house, which would again put Scorpio rising — same conclusion. A Sagittarius 5th house, with Pluto in it, would give him Leo rising, and he's got Mars there — that's pretty compelling. The other one I like for him is Taurus rising, which puts his Virgo Sun, Mercury, and Venus in the 5th house, and Mercury is exalted and domiciled in his chart. So I like Taurus rising for him, and I also like Leo rising — either one seems plausible. Leo rising would put Mars in the 1st house, which is very on-brand for an athlete at his level, and it would put the Mars-Rahu conjunction in the 1st house too, whereas the Taurus-rising chart puts Mars-Rahu in the 4th house. Going back to Vingegaard: he doesn't always seem like he's having fun — he struggles, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he shows you when he's working hard. He's just a hard worker. He's got Mars in late Virgo, widely out of sign, conjunct his North Node Rahu in Libra. The Aries-rising untimed chart puts Saturn in the 1st house and that Mars-Rahu conjunction across the descendant, but that's just the default nature of an untimed Aries-rising chart. I want to put planets in his 6th house because he's such a hard worker — that's the difference between these two guys. For Pogačar it comes naturally, it looks effortless and fun. Jonas works — he strategizes, he schemes, and his team works together extremely well. So let's look at the 6th house for him. He's got a 1996 chart with a lot of outer planets in Capricorn — Mercury, Jupiter, and Neptune all in Capricorn. He's got Uranus at 2 degrees Aquarius, and Sun and Moon in Sagittarius. That's another similarity between the two of them: they're both new moon babies. (And I forgot to even put the Moon on Pogačar's hand-drawn chart.) Vingegaard's Moon is somewhere between 5 and 18 degrees Sagittarius or so, since we don't have exact times. Looking at his 6th house: we could put Mars on the ascendant as a significator of a high-level athlete, which gives him Virgo rising — that puts Aquarius in the 6th house, ruled by Saturn in Aries in the 8th house. Doesn't really fit. Leo rising would put someone comfortable being in the public eye, but Vingegaard is more secretive and reserved than Pogačar, so I don't love Leo or Gemini rising for him. Cancer rising would put his Sun and Moon in the 6th house — that's a real possibility. Scorpio rising puts his Saturn in the 6th house, and his Saturn is a struggling Saturn, in Aries, not strong — but a struggling Saturn in the 6th house is thematically interesting. Or maybe he's a Saturn-ruled rising sign altogether — Capricorn or Aquarius rising. I think I like Capricorn better; that would put his struggling Saturn in the 4th house, with the 6th house ruled by his Capricorn Mercury. This one's tougher, I'll admit. I think Cancer and Scorpio feel like the most likely to me. Scorpio rising puts his Sun, Moon, and Pluto in the 2nd house, and his Mercury, Jupiter, and Neptune in the 3rd house. But going back to Cancer rising — I like that better, because it puts the Sun and Moon in the 6th house, which feels right: he's a hard worker, he grinds, he doesn't quit. And Jupiter, ruling that from Saturn's sign, sits in the 7th house. We need a rising sign to be able to look at profections. So I think our best bets are Taurus or Leo for Pogačar, with a slight preference for Leo since he's a bit of a showboat — though Leo rising only really gives him his Sagittarius Pluto in the 5th house, whereas Taurus puts Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus in the 5th house. So Taurus feels most likely for Pogačar, and Cancer makes the most sense to me for Jonas. Okay — we're going with Taurus rising for Pogačar as our hypothesis, and Cancer rising for Vingegaard. Now we can look at time lords. Pogačar's career started at age 21, and if he has Taurus rising, that was a 10th house profection year — Aquarius, Saturn as time lord. Interestingly, the 2020 Tour was postponed and didn't start until the end of August that year, so it didn't actually end until the day before his 22nd birthday — but it was all still contained within that 10th-house year of public career and legacy-building, his first Tour de France win. His next year — his 2nd win — would have been a Jupiter profection year. (I might need to make a spreadsheet for this.) For Jonas: he entered his first Tour at age 24, the year he finished 2nd — so that was a 1st house profection year. With Cancer rising, his Sun and Moon are in the 6th house, so the year he won would have been... actually, both his 1st-place year and the following year involve the Sun and Moon, both ruled by Jupiter, in Sagittarius. I could look at transits and progressions too, but I'm not trained at all in the art of chart rectification to nail down birth times — this is just a fun exercise. And I have to check my own bias here, because I am a Taurus rising myself, which may be why I resonate with Tadej as a Taurus rising. That Taurus-rising chart puts Virgo as his 5th house, with an exalted, domiciled Mercury there — I like that a lot. So then he'd have gone through his 10th house (Aquarius) via Saturn and Jupiter years — his first two wins. Then a Mars year and a Venus year, when he lost. Then a Mercury year and a Moon year, when he won again. And now he's in a solar year. For Vingegaard: his first runner-up finish would have been a 1st house year (Cancer rising). The year he won would have been a solar year, then a Mercury year, then a Venus year (loss), then a Mars year (loss). Both of these hypothesized charts put the Sun below the horizon for both riders — meaning both are night charts, with Saturn as the out-of-sect malefic and Venus as the sect benefic for both. The other thing we could consider is putting the Sun in a "noon chart" placement just as a ballpark. An 11th-house Sun for Pogačar would give him Scorpio rising — don't like that. Sagittarius rising with the Sun near the Midheaven/10th house puts Aries in the 5th, ruled by Mars, which would be his out-of-sect malefic, in Leo, in the 9th house — not convinced. I was also considering a Leo-rising chart for Pogačar again. One interesting thing about that: it puts Uranus in Aquarius in his 7th house. And this actually fits something real — Pogačar is married to another professional cyclist, an incredibly accomplished one, and when the Slovenian Olympic Committee snubbed her for the 2024 Olympic team, he said he wouldn't go either, even though he was the top-ranked cyclist in the world — he turned down the Olympics because they snubbed his wife. Uranus in the 7th house in Aquarius fits that. But then Leo rising also puts Capricorn in his 5th house, ruled by Saturn, with Taurus on the... it's very visible, but Capricorn in the 5th just doesn't feel right to me. So we're back to Taurus rising for him — which also gives a Scorpio 7th house: very protective, and once he makes a decision, he sticks to it on behalf of his partner. Scorpio ruled by Mars in Leo — doing the most, especially with Rahu there. I keep coming back to it. Again, I have to check my bias since I'm a Taurus rising myself, but I like Taurus rising for Tadej. Under that hypothesis, he was in a Venus year in 2023 when he was runner-up, and won again in a Mercury year and then a Moon year as his time lords. So now he's in a solar profection year — a Leo year — and his nodal opposition is in Leo too. His Sun is ruled by Mercury in Virgo, which is technically averse to its own domicile, so there's a bit of a struggle there. To find a planet that can see both his Sun (in Virgo territory) and his Mars (in Leo), we need Saturn — Saturn is square to Leo and trine to Virgo from Taurus. So this year, in his solar period, he needs help from Saturn to connect with his perfected house. If Vingegaard is indeed Cancer rising, with Sun and Moon in the 6th house, then he's in a 6th house year during his Saturn return. With Cancer rising, the 6th house is Sagittarius, so the time lord is Jupiter — but Jupiter sits in Saturn's sign and can't easily see his own home sign of Sagittarius. So again we need Saturn to bridge that gap. He could also use Mars, since Mars sits widely opposite his Saturn — and Mars, as his sect malefic for a night chart, would actually be the nicer helper of the two. So both of these guys, in these hypothesized charts, are in profection years where they need Saturn — or possibly Mars for Jonas — to come through for them. And that could open a door for someone else, like Remco Evenepoel — though I don't know if he has the form right now. There's also a new wildcard, the youngest rider to start the Tour since the 1930s. We'll see. If I had to say, between the two of them, after today and after watching their careers develop — well, the real next step would be to look at the condition of their solar returns for these years, but you need a fairly accurate birth time to do solar return charts properly, so we can't quite get there yet. Anyway, I think I'm talking in circles at this point — that's about what I can get out of these charts right now. I'll keep thinking about it and keep working on this throughout the race, looking at transits and so on. Catch you next time.