The Moment The Tour de France Was Won

After an opening week where Tadej Pogačar took time gains here and there, the first summit finish settled things. Jhonatan Narvaez leads out Tadej Pogačar at the foot of the climb to Hautacam. Seconds later the rainbow jersey will attack and Jonas Vingegaard cannot follow. The Dane tries to pace himself, holding at 20 seconds for several kilometres but cracks, losing over two minutes and almost being caught by Florian Lipowitz.

The first week saw a series of stages described as an “optical illusion”, as to glance at the profile was to imagine a series of sprint stages. Only we saw Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar duelling for the stage wins in Boulogne and Vire with Jonas Vingegaard in third place. With hindsight this was the best of the GC battle, intense in the moment but promising too as they were inseparable and this suppressed memories of the Dauphiné.

The Dunkerque stage did look like a dull one bound to end in a sprint and the peloton knew it, nobody wanted to attack. But the day wasn’t incident-free as Jasper Philipsen crashed out after riders tangled in the intermediate sprint, he was wearing the green jersey at the time too.

The Stage 5 time trial went to plan with Remco Evenepoel winning ahead of Pogačar but the surprise was Vingegaard having an off-day, beaten by two of his team mates and losing over a minute to Pogačar. Still Visma-LAB tried to stay upbeat, talking of “the Plan” but presumably being this far down à la pédale wasn’t on the drawing board.

Stage 6 to Vire showed the “Tour effect” where riders raged to get in the breakaway with intensity and duration not seen at other races, wave after wave of many of the best riders in the world trying to crack each other. Ben Healy was able to make several attempts and got into the right move and won from there while Van der Poel took yellow by one second.

The stage to Mûr-de-Bretagne avoided a bunch sprint and saw Pogačar win the stage ahead of Vingegaard. Inseparable again but with hindsight Pogačar was always ahead and even on these relatively flat stages he was filling up his lead with time bonuses. That day also saw João Almeida crash out.

Stages 8 and 9 were for the sprinters. The first to Laval saw Jonathan Milan stampede to the line, his big upright style isn’t the most aero but this is less costly in an uphill sprint and he got his maiden win.

Tim Merlier replied the next day but the expected procession to Châteauroux was ruined by Mathieu van der Poel who went on the attack with his team mate Jonas Rickaert for the whole stage, a ruse to give Rickaert the combativity prize almost turned into a stage win and prompted insomnia for anyone hoping for a Sunday siesta.

Stage 10 saw Ben Healy in the breakaway again and this time he towed it to the line as he stood to gain the yellow jersey. This gave Simon Yates almost a free ride to the line and he took the stage. Once again Pogačar and Vingegaard duelled, once again Pogačar won, once again they distanced the rest.

Stage 11 was non-stop, the “Tour effect” again with more combat than a John Wick box set. Jonas Abrahamsen managed to win despite attacking from kilometre zero and having to ride at over 50km/h on the flat for the first hour or more. He held off a chase move from Mathieu van der Poel with the Dutchman launching on the festive cauldron of Pech David.

All changed at Hautacam on Stage 12. It was this halfway point in the race and still the race for the yellow jersey hadn’t started. A 50 rider breakaway got away on the plains, then on the Col du Soulor Visma-LAB got to work but unfortunately for them the pace dropped more of their team mates than rivals. Onto the climb to Hautacam and Pogačar got a lead-out from Jhonatan Narvaez and, without getting out of the saddle, rode away. Jonas Vingegaard could only partially match the acceleration in part, picking up speed in response but not enough to stay with his rival. It was so early on the climb that for a few minutes it looked wise to hold back but soon the Dane’s body language was telling, his head dipping, the pedal stroke slowing. He’d lose two minutes, with Florian Lipowitz closing in at the finish.

This deflated the suspense and rather than the nagging doubt of a slow puncture it was as sudden as tire blowing off a hookless rim. All the skirmishes of the first half of the Tour were rendered irrelevant, the inseparable duo now over three and a half minutes apart.

The chart above shows the GC standings of the top eight riders overall relative to Pogačar across the 21 stages. All riders fall away, even on the opening stage in Lille Pogačar is on the right side of the split in the crosswinds while others miss.

The gaps widen amid the hilly finishes in the opening week, Pogačar taking time bonuses while others lose out in splits. Stage 5’s time trial is crucial because Vingegaard has an off-day, losing over a minute and by now he’s the only GC contender on the chart within two minutes. More of the same on the hilly days to Vire and Mûr-de-Bretagne. The gaps look small compared to what is to come but it’s always in one direction, everyone is falling away: nobody takes a second on Pogačar.

Hautacam is the first summit finish and Vingegaard loses over two minutes here so he’s now three and a half minutes down. For the rest of the race his line is steady, no dramatic losses but only one gain, imperceptible on the chart but on Stage 18 he gets a six second time bonus while Pogačar gets four. Anecdotal but this is the only moment Vingegaard would take time on his rival, it was that one way. Beyond this another anecdote where Vingegaard finished behind Pogačar on every stage except for this and two sprint stages where the pair were in the bunch.

The other riders are included on the chart. Showing these riders serves two purposes, first to illustrate how everyone fell away and kept going, the y-axis had to be extended like never before. It’s similar to 1997 or 1984 to see less than 10 riders within half an hour; 1979 had only four. Second because the lines don’t cross very often. If riders were soaring one day and falling the next and the chart looked like a spaghetti bowl the GC would be more entertaining. Only here things were stable, the only sharp move is Primož Roglič after his all-nothing-move on Stage 19 costs him.

The hope was Vingegaard would have a clear run at the race but his condition seemed worse than 2024. We saw this in the Dauphiné and then at the Tour and that’s the conclusion UAE’s staff took too.

Did Visma settle for second place? The constant talk of “the plan” proved a Micawber-like hope for something to turn up rather than path to victory, the hope that Pogačar would fade in the third week rather than a moment to seize the race. Visma-LAB rode hard to put Pogačar in yellow on Stage 6 and yes there’s the fatigue of the daily media round but this was hardly the way to overturn a race. This turned into small a public relations issue, raising expectations among fans rather than moderating them. They gave it one last try on the Col de la Madeleine during Stage 18 but could not overturn the race. Rather than attack until he could no more in the reckless hope of cracking his rival Vingegaard played it more rationally.

Vingegaard also had two off days. If he had performed on par in Caen and at Hautacam then the gap at the top would have been closer. It never seemed reversible but if things had been closer what would their relative state of minds have been? It could equally be that Pogačar would relish the duel and win more.

No grand tour seems complete without riders complaining about how the latest one is the most tiring edition ever. But absent enough TSS scores for now (a measure of fatigue based on power data) 2025 was hard, the speed was high on many days – the 2025 Tour de France was the fastest with an average speed of 42.84km/h – as even some sprint stages took on the air of a one day classic. There were long transfers this year too which made it harder.

It seemed especially tiring for for the GC contenders. Kévin Vauquelin spoke to various riders and relayed a consensus was that those going for GC were fried by the opening long week, the physical effort of having to compete day after day and the mental stress on the windy days too when normally they’d have stayed quiet in the peloton. This can explain some of the big gaps in the top-10, but so does the top-10 itself, the final ten to reach Paris are not the world’s ten best stage racers either.

The points competition saw Jonathan Milan’s challenge come from Tadej Pogačar. Tim Merlier beat Milan in every sprint they contested, the Belgian thwarted by splits and crashes. Jasper Philipsen crash in the intermediate sprint on the third day denied a closer contest. The sprints were good, but if nobody attacks before then the organisers will try to avoid them.

The mountains competition didn’t catch fire, arguably one high point was the opening stage when Benjamin Thomas et Mattéo Vercher sprinted for one point on Mont Cassel. Lenny Martinez tried to go for it but spent more days in the jersey as a clothes horse for the competition leader Pogačar. He’ll be remembered for multiple sticky bottles on the Glandon but his bid also came undone because of erratic riding and the suggestion he needs to descend as fast as he can climb.

The white jersey proved to the the most keenly contested. Florian Lipowitz is the first German on the podium since Klöden in 2006 and continues his Wundersaison after white jerseys in Paris-Nice and the Dauphiné and can clearly improve, including easing back on the kamikaze moves. By contrast did Oscar Onley ever attack? He exceeded expectations and rode steadily throughout to fourth place which is just what his team wanted, he’s collected well over 1,000 UCI points this month when his team had scored under 5,000 this season as they try to stave off relegation. Kévin Vauquelin was a revelation too, if not for the performances which many knew he could deliver but the way he took on leadership and seemed to revel in the media when he’s lacked confidence in himself before too.

Final notes for Thymen Arensman grinding uphill to two stage wins, getting ahead of events, unlike Ineos management with the doping/trust story that we should return too now the pile of maps and route notes is tidied up. Alpecin-Deceuninck are still searching for a co-sponsor which is astonishing given their success and having the one rider who can topple Pogačar, if only away from the mountains.

The flipside of the “Tour effect” mentioned above is wilting romance, no local rider on a raid, no wildcard team to upset the odds. Among the weakest stage winners were Arensman who’s been top-10 in the Giro and Valentin Paret-Peintre who’s won a Giro stage and beat Adam Yates in a straight uphill finish in Oman. Yes Uno-X won but they’re a team with plan and a pathway and could be in the World Tour soon too. Teams struggling to get noticed really need to find a niche to occupy to stand out.

The Verdict
Tadej Pogačar took time everywhere he could and the more opportunities he was given, the more he grabbed them. This was fun in the first week and the opening 11 stages made for one of the liveliest starts ever to the Tour. But Hautacam saw Tadej Pogačar land the knock-out blow on Jonas Vingegaard’s ambitions.

Vingegaard then matched Pogačar to create the impression of a duel but it was one-sided, he was able to follow Pogačar but could not get back time, while all the other GC contenders fell further and further away. His Visma were strong at times but never able to bend the race to their will as they could before, illness at times hampered them and UAE shared this problem at times too even if both squads enjoyed multiple stage wins. He’s due to race the Vuelta but we’ll see if the winter brings a reset and different objectives, perhaps the Giro next year instead?

It made for a topsy-turvy race where the best days were not the hotly-anticipated summit finishes – Mont Ventoux excepted – but most of the other days in between. The first long week was a thrill, the skirmishes were enjoyable in the moment.

The “Tour effect” meant Boulogne, Rouen, Vire, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Pontarlier and Paris hosted superb stages, if this blog picks five highlights of the season that’s seven contenders already. But they were lively because UAE and Visma-LAB didn’t or couldn’t control them. What would have raised them to a supreme level would be to see the GC contenders at work too, so Ben Healy, Jonas Abrahamsen and others up the road going for the stage while a second contest behind saw the GC contenders making moves on the road to Toulouse or Pontarlier.

Newspapers have published siesta guides for Tour viewers but this looks redundant. Only Dunkerque and Laval were soporific. This is almost a problem as a quiet day’s viewing allows riders to recover. Transition stages ridden at 50km/h sap everyone forced to keep up; while the baroudeurs can go in the gruppetto in the mountains and this year benefitted from extended time cuts.

Pogačar has exhausted the superlatives. He is now at the risk of exhausting some fans because of the lack of a contest although it’s notable how many children lined the route with Pogi signs and UAE jerseys and TV audiences in France have surged. He says he should be back at the Tour again next year but note the conditional tense, this uncertainty. Because if he does start in Barcelona next July things will look rather certain again.