Vingegaard didn’t find his best legs until week 2 and showed for the rest of the race that he was almost his rival’s equal. But that’s a big almost. Pogačar never tired – though he was slowed by a cold in the final week – and eventually Vingegaard must have known that second was the best he could achieve. Perhaps that explains his puzzling behavior on the last of the two mountain stages. Thursday’s stage 18 and Friday’s stage 19. He had vowed to go for broke on the two summit finishes of these stages, but when he had his chances on the climbs to, respectively, the Col de la Loze (26.4km @ 6,5%) and La Plagne (19.1km @ 7.2%), he did not fire a bullet in anger until it was too late.
Oddly, Pogačar uncharacteristically didn’t try to win either stage, but rode calmly to the finish, sure of his ultimate victory. According to TNT Sports, he had been suffering from a cold. But this lack of action by the main protagonists of the race added a feeling of anti-climax to a race that had more dramatic climaxes than a Shakespeare festival. The numerous hilly stages, especially in the first week, were chaotic, shambolic and utterly thrilling. That continued with Saturday’s stage 20, with breakaway groups forming, falling apart and reforming, before Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) rode a 16km solo to win his first Tour de France stage and put him in the elite company who have won stages in all three Grand Tours.
Van Aert gets Visma revenge as Pogačar wins fourth Tour
It was only poetic justice that the last stage of this wild and woolly Tour de France should be the wildest and wooliest. Of the 132.3km from Mantes-la-Ville to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, only 67.9km consisted of actual racing. The rest of it, the first half, more or less, was spent in celebrating the fourth Tour victory by Tadej Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates–XRG. Photos were taken, champagne was consumed and applause was heaped on the winner.
Then the racing began on the Champs-Élysées. The usual six laps of this iconic (and expensive) boulevard were completed, including for the first time three cobbled ascents of the Côte de la Butte Montmartre (1.1km @ 5.9%, with a max of 9.6%). Rain had fallen in Paris and made the asphalt and smooth Parisian cobblestones treacherously wet. As a result, the times for the stage were taken after the fourth Champs-Élysées circuit, with the rest of the race run for the fun of it. Because it was the last chance for winless riders and teams to leave the Tour with a prestigious victory on the most famous cycling finish in the world, many riders threw caution to the winds and three main groups eventually formed, with the lead group containing the insatiable Pogačar and two riders from his rival Visma–Lease a Bike team, Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson.
Of course, the world champion initiated the final fireworks of the race by attacking on the second Montmartre ascent, with 23.4km left to ride. He was followed by five riders, including van Aert and Jorgenson. Pogačar attacked again on the last Montmartre climb, 7km from the finish. But only 500m later he tasted a rare misfortune: he was overtaken and passed on a climb. It was van Aert, riding at his best again, who zoomed past and quickly opened a gap. With 4.5km left to ride, his lead was 10 seconds; at 2km, it had doubled. He stormed to the finish line, taking his tenth Tour de France stage – the second on the Champs-Élysées – and his team’s second of this Tour. Pogačar finished fourth, 19 seconds adrift, the same time as Davide Ballerini (XDS Astana) and Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious).
“It was a special day out,” van Aert said after the stage. “It was special to win here on the Champs-Élysées again and on the first occasion where we climbed to Montmartre.” Asked if he had wanted to win this stage especially and had targeted it, he said, “To be honest, I also wanted the 20 stages before today.”
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Lipo versus Onley
The Pogačar-Vingegaard battle was not the only duel in the Tour. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), 24, and 22-year-old Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) waged a fascinating head-to-head for third place in the GC and the young rider’s white jersey. Lipowitz seemed to have the contest well in hand, leading the young Scot by more than 2 minutes, when a near-disastrous miscalculation by the German and his team saw him riding alone over most of the queen stage, stage 18, and lose all but 22 seconds of his advantage. He clawed back half of the time lost to his rival when he stayed in the wheels of the GC leaders on the climb to La Plagne, while Onley could not keep up.
What is remarkable for me about Lipowitz is that he received no help on the road from his Red Bull teammates. Neither team leader Primož Roglič, who raced for his own glory but failed to win a stage, nor veteran Aleksandr Vlasov gave him some slipstream on the climbs, while Onley almost always had a teammate in front of him. What’s exciting is that both riders have plenty of upside left and could, eventually, produce the same mano a mano drama as Pogačar and Vingegaard, after those two have retired.
Unless the reports swirling through the blogosphere are correct and that Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), who left the Tour on stage 14 after apparently riding with a cracked rib, has agreed to join Lipowitz’s team beginning in 2026. If the reports are confirmed, what does this do to Lipowitz’s role on the team? Will he be relegated again to the role of domestique for a wanna-be Tour winner who, I believe, will never beat the riders who finished first and second for the fifth consecutive Tour de France? Not that I believe Lipowitz can ever beat them. But after the way he rode in this Tour, he surely deserves some glory down the road.
Thymen Arensman!
Four riders won at least two stages in this Tour. Pogačar, of course (he won four). The sprinters Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) and Lidl-Trek’s Jonathan Milan, who won the Škoda Green Jersey. And then there was the 25-year-old Dutch rider Thymen Arensman, who singlehandedly removed the doom and gloom that has enveloped his INEOS Grenadiers due to a lack of success by soloing to wins on two of the most prestigious stages in the Tour, the summit finishes at Luchon-Superbagnères in stage 14 and La Plagne (stage 19). On the second win, he struggled to the finish line 2 seconds ahead of Vingegaard and Pogačar after a solo climb of more than 14 km. “I’m destroyed,” he said afterwards. “I can’t believe I beat them.” Neither could anyone else believe that the two best riders in the world didn’t attack until Arensman raised his tired arms in celebration at the line.
Is French cycling on the upswing?
This was a very good Tour for French cycling, despite the fact that the home riders won only one stage, by Valentin Paret-Peintre on Mont Ventoux. The Soudal Quick-Step domestique’s victory atop that iconic mountain was only the fifth ever for a French rider and the first in 23 years. But French riders were prominent throughout the race, and 24-year-old Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa–B&B Hotels) finished seventh in the GC while 26-year-old Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies), finished tenth.
Add to that the valiant efforts of 24-year-old Lenny Martinez to win the King of the Mountain jersey (Pogačar won it) and the fact that Paret-Peintre is only 24, and the future of French cycling looks more promising than it has in a while. I’m not saying that any of these riders will eventually win a Tour, but they will certainly make French hearts beat faster for a while.
Is “chaotic, shambolic and utterly thrilling” the future?
According to the TNT Sports commentators, the addition of numerous hilly stages, which resemble a one-day Classic more than a typical Grand Tour stage, was a response to audience preferences. Apparently, many viewers find the long preludes to a bunch sprint a little dull. They prefer breakaways and constant action, and those punchy stages certainly gave them that. There was no letup in the spectacle or in the high speeds at which these stages were ridden. Though no official statistics have yet been released, it appears that this was the fastest Tour ever. (One reliable source put the average speed of the 2025 Tour at 42.445km/h. The previous fastest Tour ever was the 2022 edition, when winner Vingegaard was clocked at an average speed of 42.102km/h.
There’s no doubt that this was one of the most dramatic and unpredictable of all Tours and that audience reaction has been or will be very positive. But it would be a shame to reduce the stages suited to bunch sprints, if only because they give many riders a chance to rest up for the next mad and punch-drunk stage. All riders were exhausted by the time they rode into Paris. And there’s the safety factor. This hasn’t been an unusually crash-filled race, though a number of riders did crash out. But as the speeds at which the race is ridden continue to increase, the chances for crashes increase as well, especially as the riders tire.
Results of Stage 21, 2025 Tour de France
- Wout van Aert, Visma–Lease a Bike 3:07:30
2. Davide Ballerini, XDS-Astana +0:19
3. Matej Mohorič, Bahrain-Victorious “
4. Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates–XRG “
5. Matteo Jorgenson, Visma–Lease a Bike +0:26
6. Matteo Trentin, Tudor Pro +0:38
7. Arnaud de Lie, Lotto +1:14
8. Kévin Vauquelin, Arkéa–B&B Hotels “
9. Mike Teunissen, XDS Astana “
10. Dylan Teuns, Lotto “
Final 2025 Tour de France General Classification
- Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates–XRG 76:00:32
2. Jonas Vingegaard, Visma–Lease a Bike +4:24
3. Florian Lipowitz, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe +11:00
4. Oscar Onley, Picnic PostNL +12:12
5. Felix Gall, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale +17:12
6. Tobias Halland Johannessen, UNO-X Mobility +20:14
7. Kévin Vauquelin, Arkéa–B&B Hotels +22:35
8. Primož Roglič, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe +25:30
9. Ben Healy, EF Education–EasyPost +28:02
10. Jordan Jegat, TotalEnergies +32:42
