If there is one word to describe the first week of this year’s Tour de France, explosive is the word to use.
The 112th edition hasn’t quite reached the high mountains of the Pyrennes and Alps yet but a final fascinating Stage 10 route into the Massif Central on Bastille Day now gives the riders their first rest day – a chance for fans and writers such as me at It’s All Sport To Me to take stock.
Setting off from Lille, the sprinters got four opportunities to take wins including the first yellow jersey on day one, a time trial in Caen on Stage 5 led to some surprising time gaps in the overall general classification, but what the route organisers can be praised for are the hilly stages they produced.
Stages 2, 4, 6 and 7 into Boulogne-sur-Mer, Rouen, Vire-Normandie and the infamous Mur-de-Bretagne gave the Tour punchy Ardennes Classicesque stages where the road is either up or down. Stage 6 in particular in the hills of Normandy was the perfect stage for a breakaway to take the win ahead of the peloton, and so it proved for Irishman Ben Healy (more on him later).
The yellow jersey has chopped and changed from a sprinter, a punchy Classics man, the pre-race favourite Tadej Pogacar and Healy himself as the race reached Mont Dore on France’s national holiday.
There’s quite a lot to compact into five talking points, not everything will be written down, but let’s give it a go.
Embed from Getty ImagesIt is still the Tadej Pogacar show…so far
Paris and the added stress the new unpredictable finale route will bring is a long way away yet, but even before the race has reached the Pyrennes or the Alps, once again it is crystal clear that both defending champion Tadej Pogacar and his two-times Tour winning rival Jonas Vinegaard are the strongest riders in the race.
The pair have won the last five Tours and while they now sit second and fourth overall behind Ben Healy in yellow, the Slovenian and the Dane still remain overwhelming favourites to be the top two on the final podium.
Vinegaard will be 1min 17sec down on Pogacar going into the second week mainly down to the fact that his Stage 5 time trial was awful while Pogacar excelled. So far, that is the only bad day the Visma-Lease a Bike leader has had because he did manage to follow Pogacar’s attacks, albeit the world champion gained time and bonuses thanks to two stages won in Rouen and atop the Mur-de-Bretagne.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe encouraging sign for Visma is that Jonas Vinegaard is responding and staying glued to Pogacar’s wheel without making any serious strides in attacking himself to try and crack his fierciest rival. It is cliche that you cannot win the Tour in week one only lose it – Vinegaard has far from lost but you hope that time trial disaster will not prove costly if the timings come Stage 21 are very close.
It is still the Tadej Pogacar show for the time being down to the fact that he’s already had a stint in yellow and has won two stage wins, now 19 in total at the Tour – not threatening Mark Cavendish’s 35 stage win record yet but keeping the totals up in years to come, it soon won’t be an impossible ask.
What is interesting though is strength in depth is now not on Pogacar’s side due to the loss of mountain domestique Joao Almeida and on Stage 10 Pavel Sivakov struggled very early to keep up with the race.
Vinegaard and Visma have the full-strength squad which they have yet to really use to explode the race to pieces. Long mountain climbs for the team to set an infernal pace has yet to take place and in former Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss, he has been quiet up until making a few small moves on Stage 10. Fellow Amercian and this year’s Paris-Nice winner Matteo Jorgenson is in great form and in this year’s British Giro d’Italia winner, Simon Yates won Stage 10 itself.
Yates had a disastrous start to the Tour on Stage 1 losing over six minutes on GC but in all fairness, a high overall placing after completing and winning the first grand tour already, Yates can be excused for having a Giro in his legs. Simon Yates is finding form once again, Visma are strong in numbers, but they still have one problem – Tadej Pogacar.
Having a team around him may not matter to Tadej Pogacar because this is Tadej Pogacar. He follows, he attacks, nothing unsettles him – Visma can try all they can to dislodge the current world champion, but it may no work.
Embed from Getty ImagesThere has been a little bit of tension between Pogacar and his big rivals for yellow this week as he hit out at Jonas Vinegaard’s team and called on them to “pay respect to everybody”, following a feed zone incident on Stage 7.
Words are words, tension is tension, but in the end the legs do the talking. We’ll wait and see in week two and beyond to see if the Dutch team can break UAE Team Emirates’s superstar of the current cycling world. It’s an intriguing task we await answers to as the race climbs legendary mountains such as Hautacam and the Col du Tourmalet.
Remco Evenepoel is best of the rest
It will once again come as no surprise that last year’s final podium of Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vinegaard and Remco Evenepoel in third place, is exactly what is happening again for 2025.
The Soudal Quick-Step leader looks well-placed to defend his podium place from last year but there will be frustration that he lost 39 seconds to his rivals on Stage 1 due to crosswind-induced echelons.
Already on the back foot on day one is not how a GC contender wants to start any bike race, let alone the Tour. To say “we fell asleep because of the relaxed environment we were in at that moment,” that was astonisingly poor from a team known for usually taking advantage from strong winds across the road breaking up the peloton.
No need to be too harsh on the Belgian though, his second-ever Tour stage win this week once again in a time trial, solidfies his stature as world champion in that particular discipline. Evenepoel remains favourite to win the white jersey as best young rider come Paris, but the question is whether he can actually take the fight to Pogacar and Vinegaard in the high mountains?
Embed from Getty ImagesElsewhere, there’s a new British talent who has quietly climbed his way up the GC.
22-year-old Oscar Onley is riding just his second Tour and in some of the stages this week he has kept pace to come third, fourth and sixth – going head-to-head with the likes of Pogacar, Vinegaard and Evenepoel.
On the “wall” of the Mur-de-Bretagne, Onley was only separated by two seconds from two of the world’s best climbers – getting into the mix means there are high hopes that maybe, just maybe, he could take a stage win.
Riding for Dutch team Picnic-PostNL, Oscar Onley’s career started in the Scottish Borders. As written by Thomas Duncan at BBC Sport Scotland, when his local club Kelso Wheelers time trial came past his house, Onley got involved.
He looks calm, collected, speaks as though he’s ridden many a grand tour, how far can Oscar Onley go on GC?
Yet to take on a solid mountain pass, Onley is currently seventh overall. A couple of minutes behind the likes of Pogacar, Vinegaard and Evenepoel, a podium place is a big ask, but a top ten overall and a stage win is possible.
Embed from Getty ImagesFrance’s hopes of a first yellow jersey winner after 40 years remain unlikely as Arkea’s Kevin Vanquelin lost significant time as the race hit the Massif Central one day before the rest day. The 24-year-old rider from Bayeux could still make a decent showing in the mountains to maybe win a stage, but once again the host nation’s wait for a maillot jaune since Bernard Hinault in 1985 goes on.
Elsewhere, Red Bull BORA-Hansgrohe pair Florian Lipowitz and Primoz Roglic, INEOS’s Carlos Rodriguez, Decathlon’s Felix Gall and Movistar’s Enric Mas are all hanging around the top ten. All have suffered time losses but will hope to start climbing the standings on terrain suited to their abilities.
Four tough stages in the Pyrenees including a mountain time trial atop Peyragudes – the Tour de France is about to really heat up.
Van der Poel has lit up the race
Eyebrows were raised when Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates Mathieu van der Poel and Jonas Rickaert formed a two-man breakaway on Stage 9 into Chateauroux, a flat stage that was eventually won by Tim Merlier but pushed close as Van der Poel almost beat the sprinters to it.
Madness or heroic? Opinions are opinions but overall the Dutchman can be proud of not just making sure his teammate can say he got a Tour de France podium as the best combative rider for the stage (well done Jonas Rickaert!), but also claiming a stage win in Boulogne on Stage 2 and wearing the yellow jersey twice.
Embed from Getty ImagesYou’d think that after winning the stage and wearing the maillot jaune, Mathieu van der Poel would rest easy on a flat stage, but this is a rider who has supreme talent, a Milan-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix champion, who can go long range for a stage win.
We know the family story of his maternal grandfather Raymond Poulidor as winner of the 1964 Vuelta and three-times Tour de France runner-up, all the more poignant as six years ago was Poulidor’s death and four years ago an emotional Van der Poel won his first Tour stage and yellow jersey at Mur-de-Bretagne.
How the former world champion would have loved to win again on the Mur this year wearing yellow, but when you’re up against Pogacar, Vinegaard and the rest, it’s not always easy.
His Tour de France has already been a success and more stage wins are always a possibility. Alpecin-Deceunick will be delighted with his efforts and the team overall, despite the loss of sprinter Jasper Philipsen on Stage 3 to Dunkirk. The Belgian won the opening day in Lille to win the first yellow jersey but a crash in the intermediate sprint for green jersey points two days later ended in a broken collarbone.
Mixed feelings for the team but satisfaction that their leader has lit up the race on week one stages that suited him to the ground.
No sprinter has dominated as of yet
Ok the stage results show that current European champion Tim Merlier has won two stages compared to Jonathan Milan on one and Jasper Philipsen winning one before his crash – but overall there’s not much to separate any of them.
Losing Philipsen is disappointing for the race to miss an extra competitor in the sprints, but the race has to carry on and in both Milan and Merlier there is a head-to-head which will continue throughout the rest of the Tour.
The post-Mark Cavendish era of Tour sprinting superstars has been in full flow and in the green jersey competition, Italian Jonathan Milan is looking increasingly likely to hold the maillot vert all the way to Paris.
Embed from Getty ImagesHe is a powerful sprinter and the facts do speak for themselves, where he has not left a stage race without a sprint win since August 2023. Lidl-Trek have a strong lead-out train where Stage 8 into Laval saw it all come to fruition.
Four years away from the Tour means Tim Merlier winning two stages so far will be pleasing and not unexpected as his victory tally for 2025 is now 12.
Other sprinters have not been successful so far including Dylan Groenewegen, last year’s green jersey winner Binian Girmay came close on the opening stage but has not come close since, and Lotto’s Arnaud De Lie has only managed a top ten on Stages 8 and 9. The Belgian has been subject to harsh criticism when he’s been suffering psychologically and physically this year – plus he’s still young too at 23 meaning a stage win at a grand tour has yet to be achieved.
A final word to Ben Healy
Stage 9 of the Tour this week at 50.013 km/h was the second-fastest in Tour history, owing to the tailwind and the chase the peloton had to make to bring back Van der Poel and Rickaert.
A fast and furious first week has ended with a change in the yellow jersey before week two – Ireland’s Ben Healy.
Bastille Day in the Massif Central ended not only with a Brit winning a stage but also Healy becoming the first Irishman to wear the maillot jaune since Stephen Roche in 1987.
Embed from Getty ImagesBorn in Birmingham just like his fellow Irishman and grand tour stage winner Dan Martin, the Stage 6 win in Vire was already achieved thanks to him making the break and attacking with 42km to go.
You have to admire the efforts EF Education-Easy Post did to force the break on Stage 10. The team set a strong pace and made sure Ben Healy was in the best position to eat into Pogacar’s yellow jersey lead.
The Irishman won’t win this Tour but to wear the yellow jersey is something unique and special for any rider. Now a first-ever Tour stage in the bag (there may be more to come), following a previous stage win at the Giro in 2023 – it’s already a great Tour for the 24-year-old.
A word also to Lenny Martinez who on day one was struggling out the back and looked destined to abandon the race. The Frenchman, whose grandfather Mariano Martinez won on the Bastille Day stage to Morzine in 1980, is now in the polka-dot jersey as King of the Mountains. Expect him to be in more breakaways and fingers crossed he wins enough points to make sure the GC contenders don’t take the prize.
