2025 Tour de France Stage 1
Crosswinds chaos in Lille!
The wait is over, the Tour de France is finally here! We’ve re-watched the last edition on Netflix, we’ve listened to all the ‘bumper preview’ podcasts, we’ve shaved our legs, applied our shammy cream and filled our bidons, and now we are fully prepared for the Grand Départ in Lille!
Who is going to win this year’s edition (Pogacar, obvs), who are the favourites (for second and third place?) Can Vingegaard return to his 2022 and 2023 form? Magic 8 ball?
We will see anyway, and anything can happen over the next three weeks. Riders can crash out, get sick, have a bad day in the heat…… That’s the beauty of a grand tour, it is hard to make predictions on the first day.
Of course not everyone is trying to win this Tour, there are riders who want to finish in the top 10 on GC, riders who want to win a stage, and even riders who just want to get into a breakaway to get some valuable TV time for their sponsors. We all know the favourites, Pogacar, Vingegaard, Remco, Roglic, but who are the other GC riders we need to keep an eye on? Here are a few dark horses to consider:
Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull) - finished 3rd in the Dauphine this year, and will be ready to lead his team should Roglic crash out (again)
Simon Yates (Visma) - has just won the Giro d’Italia, is in the form of his life and is riding the Tour low key in support of Vingegaard. Yates can hang back and perhaps make a third week surge in the GC like he did at the Giro.
Ivan Romeo (Movistar) - 21 years old, future Spanish superstar who has just won the Spanish National Champs.
Oscar Onley (Picnic Post) - another youngster (22), 3rd at the Tour de Suisse, another future start to keep an eye on.
Today will be a sprint stage, lets take a look at the profile:
It is flat, and not too long for fresh legs. 185km starting and ending in Lille. The winner of the stage of course will get to wear the yellow jersey tomorrow, a rare treat for the sprinters, and the first time in 5 years that they have had a chance to wear the most famous and coveted leaders jersey in cycling. We have some great sprinters this year, Jonathan Milan from Lidl will ride his first Tour and is a favourite for the green jersey along with the two Belgian aces Tim Merlier (Quickstep) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin), last year’s green jersey winner Biniam Germay (Intermache), their teams will be all committed to the sprint today so it is unlikely a breakaway will make it to the line.
The prospects for the breakaway are so bleak that only two riders formed one. Benjamin Thomas from Cofidis and Matteo Vercher from TotalEnergies, two Frenchmen. At 78km to go the pair had just over seconds on the peloton when they approached the top of the cat 4 Mont Cassel, a small cobbled climb with KOM points for the polka dot jersey. There was a terrific battle to the line in front of a huge crowd of local spectators. Thomas and Vercher went shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow right up the the line, at the last second Thomas threw his bike across the line, then lost control and went flying off his bike which skidded out from under him and knocked Vercher off! The pair were left sitting on their arses with little birds circling their heads. Then the peloton came through and that was the end of the breakaway. Thomas at least will wear the polka dots tomorrow.
68km to go, and bad news for Ineos, as Filippo Ganna, the Italian Time Trial Superstar becomes the first rider in the 2025 TdF to abandon, following a crash just 52km into the stage. It is sad to see such a talented rider go so early in the race.
We have seen many times how the first stage of a Tour de France can be very nervy and rife with crashes, riders are jumpy and full of adrenaline. Remember the 2020 edition through the wet slippery streets of Nice, there were so many crashes that the peloton were neutralised by Tony Martin. Today’s opening stage seems quite straightforward so lets hope there are no more incidents on the way to the finish line.
60km to go and it seems quite early in the stage for the group to be all together. It will be quite nervous now there is no breakaway to follow. Soon the sprinters teams will start to get into position, but for the moment it is the calm before the storm.
55km to go, Giro d’Italia champion Simon Yates has been hanging out at the back of the peloton and suddenly finds himself distanced by 30 seconds. He used the cars to get back to the peloton, and in 3km he is back in the bunch.
44km to go, and we have another abandon! Stefan Bissegger from Decathlon was involved in the Ganna crash earlier in the stage, and it looks like he’s had another crash. He is helped to his feet by a local policeman, and someone from the crowd offers him a plastic garden chair to sit on while he waits for his team car. Bissegger’s handlebars are bent, his Garmin is wonky and his sunglasses are in the road. Another spectator picks them up and kindly hands them to poor Bissegger who looks very shaken up.
42km to go, and something is up with Bahrain’s Lenny Martinez who was dropped on the last climb, and is now 20 seconds behind the peloton and struggling to catch up. Martinez has had a great season so far this year, finishing 2nd in the Tour de Romandie, perhaps he has started this Tour with some kind of illness?
We have reached 25km to go now without any other incidents. There are plenty of roundabout and street furniture to negotiate now and the teams with GC hopefuls are as close to the front as they can get to protect their prize riders. Visma are up there along with the sprinters teams, Alpecin, Lidl and UnoX. The road is wide at the moment so there is plenty of room for everyone. Flags on the roadside show that there is quite a bit of wind blowing across the road. It is a crosswind at the moment.
22km to go and Ivan Romeo is 1 minute behind the bunch after his chain came off. He is going to struggle to get back on as the peloton is going 70kph in this flat section. The wind is blowing from behind now pushing the riders along. Simon Yates is off the back again, riding with Matteo Vercher who’s jersey is shredded from his crash earlier on.
17km to go, and there are strong crosswinds again. It looks like there might be gaps forming in the peloton. There are some big names at the front now pushing the pace. Pogacar is there with Vingegaard, echelon's are forming all the way down the line and the elastic is stretching! Vingegaard and Pogacar are really driving the pace to try and split this peloton!
16km to go and the split has formed! A lot of the sprinters are trapped in the second group and the gaps are growing. In the front we have Pogacar, Vingegaard, Enric Mas, Mathieu Van Der Poel, Biniam Girmay, Jasper Philipsen, Kaden Groves….
14km to go, the front group has 20 seconds now, there are some big names who have missed out including Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic, Waut Van Aert plus sprinters Tim Melier and Jonathan Milan. It is crosswinds chaos!
10km to go, the front group have 30 seconds now. Alpecin are really well staffed with five riders in this small group, including Van Der Poel who is ready to lead out the two big sprinters Philipsen and Groves.
8km to go and the gap is growing to 40 seconds, Alpecin continue to ride at the front and Pogacar is up there too
5km to go, and it doesn’t look like this breakaway group will be caught now. There are going to be time gaps on a stage that looked simple at the start of the day. There is a crash at the back of the group and Ben O’Connor, GC man from EF goes down heavily.
3km to go, the gap is still 38 seconds. Alpecin look like they will be hard to beat as Jasper Philipsen has more than half of his team in there to lead him out. Biniam Girmay, the other great sprinter in this group has no teammates with him.
1km to go, and Uno X lead the charge through the flamme rouge, Alpecin are right there behind them! The peloton are 33 seconds behind and will not catch them.
800m to go and Alpecin come to the front, Philipsen sits in the 4th wheel, he is getting a luxurious lead-out train!
750m to go and Van Der Poel comes to the front now, rainbow bands across his tanned biceps, he takes Groves and Philipsen 200m down to road and then pulls off to the side.
550m to go and Kaden Groves is now the final lead-out man for Philipsen, the two Alpecin riders are on the far right hand side of the road, behind them is Girmay hoping to jump off Pedersen’s wheel. On the left hand side of the road Jake Stewart from IPT tries an early move and momentarily surges ahead of Philipsen!
Kaden Groves pulls away at 300m to go and lets Philipsen off the leash, and Philipsen floors it, launching his sprint and driving ahead of everyone. Stewart runs out of gas and stops pedalling, Girmay is right on Philipsen’s wheel but can’t come around him! Philipsen comes across the line a whole bike length in front of Girmay, taking his 10th Tour de France stage win, and first ever yellow jersey!
It is a great win for Alpecin, who were canny enough to get 5 riders in the split that happened at 17km to go, and was driven by Vingegaard and Pogacar. The only team with a top sprinter and lead-out train in the final km’s their win was along guaranteed.
We expected a casual ride to the finish of this stage but some quick thinking and hard riding from Vingegaard and Pogacar has led to a sizable gap to GC rivals Roglic and Remco, which will be hard for them to claw back.
Here are the results of the stage, and of course the current GC standings after the first stage of the 2025 Tour de France.
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