2025 Tour de France Stage 1 Report:
The first stage of the 2025 Tour de France promised excitement with a probable sprint finish and it didn’t disappoint, and cross winds gapped some GC hopefuls. The combination of the pressure of the Tour, crosswinds, the battle for the first jerseys and massive crowds led to a day of very fast racing, crashes and time losses for certain favorites!
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took his 10th Tour de France stage victory on the opening day in Lille and his first ever yellow jersey after an action packed stage.
How it Happened
At the zero kilometer mark of this mostly flat 185km stage, the first attack of the race was launched by Mattéo Vercher (Total Energies) and he was quickly joined by Jonas Rutsch (Intermarché-Wanty), Matis Le Berre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis).
A fairly flat day in the saddle for the peloton with 185km and three small Cat. 4 climbs
These five had the honor of forming the break of the day but they were never able to create a significant gap as nerves in the peloton with the big GC teams constantly moving their leaders forward kept the speed high. With winds of up to 35kph predicted UAE, Visma, Soudal and the like were taking no chances at all.
Meanwhile at the rear of the peloton Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) and Sean Flynn (Picnic PostNL) had the bad luck of being the first to fall at this years’ race. Both managed to remount and rejoin the peloton but unfortunately for Ganna he couldn’t finish the stage and ended up abandoning 50km later. He would be one of two powerhouse time-triallists to abandon due to a crash with Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) also abandoning later in the stage after a crash with Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) who was able to remount and finish the stage.
The battle for the point on offer on the first climb of the day was fought out amongst the break and after a highly contested sprint it was Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) who took the only KOM point on offer. He would need to win another of the two category 4 climbs in the rest of the stage to take the jersey at the end of the day though but that wasn’t looking possible as the break was swept up before the 2nd climb with 105km of the race still to go.
The peloton could now contest the intermediate sprint and it was Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) who took maximum points ahead of Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) & Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty).
The peloton then took a minute to rest after the sprint and Mattéo Vercher (Total Energies) who was in the original break attacked again solo. Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) took off after him 2 minutes later and the two Frenchmen soon joined up and headed off to the cobbled climb of the Mont Cassel together to fight for the one point on offer there.
It was on this cobbled climb that one of the craziest Category 4 sprints ever seen in Le Tour occurred with their rear wheels bouncing around on the cobbles and fatigue and lactic acid screaming in their legs the French duo launched for the line….
Boom! Benjamin Thomas lost control of his bike with his throw for the line and fell to the ground taking the unlucky Vercher with him. Thomas got the point though and no one can say that he didn’t give it his all!
With the two breakaway riders on the ground the peloton quickly caught them and the race was all together again as they hit the short descent. After the descent various groups got dropped in the crosswinds, Simon Yates changed bikes and was out the back and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) looked terrible and was getting dropped every time the road went up. The stress was clearly on the faces of the riders and even with 60kms still to go the chances of a big split in the bunch was looking very likely.
Quinn SIMMONS (LIDL-TREK) was often seen on the front today working for Milan…
Surprisingly it was the Visma-Lease A Bike squad who were trying to split things with Vingegaard himself putting in the efforts on the front of the peloton and with 18km to go a true split in the peloton formed. Enrique Mas (Movistar), Ben O’Connor (Jayco) and the two big GC favorites of Pogacar and Vingegaard made the split but Evenopoel & Roglic didn’t.
Also missing from the front group was the big favorite for the stage, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and so Alpecin-Deceuninck drove the front group as the most well represented team (6 riders) in the 41 strong front group.
The gap quickly grew to 30 seconds and it was clear that the stage would be fought out between these front 41 – who were reduced to 39 when EF’s sprinter, Marijn van den Berg crashed heavily on a speed-bump and took Ben O’Connor down with him. Luckily for O’Connor they were inside the new 5km saftey zone and they would be credited with the same time as the winner.
Who would that winner be though with the likes of fastmen Girmay, Philipsen and Ackerman in the front group ? In the end the teamwork of the Alpecin boys proved to be too strong with a perfect long leadout by Van der Poel and then Groves giving Jasper Philipsen a clear run to the line. Philipsen won easily by a couple of bike lengths over Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and Soren Waerenskjold (Uno-X Mobility and would get to pull on the famous Maillot Jaune tonight – his first ever.
A great day for the Alpecin squad, a poor day for Roglic & Evenpoel (39 second loss) and a terrible day for Ganna and Bissegger. What will tomorrow’s hillier stage bring? Keep it tuned to PEZ for all the latest.
Tour de France Stage 1 Result:
1 Philipsen Jasper Alpecin-Deceuninck 03:53:11
2 Girmay Biniam Intermarché-Wanty + 00
3 Wærenskjold Søren Uno-X Mobility + 00
4 Turgis Anthony Team TotalEnergies + 00
5 Trentin Matteo Tudor Pro Cycling Team + 00
6 Russo Clément Groupama-FDJ + 00
7 Penhoët Paul Groupama-FDJ + 00
8 Jorgenson Matteo Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 00
9 Mayrhofer Marius Tudor Pro Cycling Team + 00
10 Watson Sam INEOS Grenadiers + 00
Tour de France Overall After Stage 1:
01 Philipsen Jasper Alpecin-Deceuninck 03:53:01
02 Girmay Biniam Intermarché-Wanty + 04
03 Wærenskjold Søren Uno-X Mobility + 06
04 Turgis Anthony Team TotalEnergies + 10
05 Trentin Matteo Tudor Pro Cycling Team + 10
06 Russo Clément Groupama-FDJ + 10
07 Penhoët Paul Groupama-FDJ + 10
08 Jorgenson Matteo Team Visma | Lease a Bike + 10
09 Mayrhofer Marius Tudor Pro Cycling Team + 10
10 Watson Sam INEOS Grenadiers + 10
The post TOUR’25 Stage 1: Philipsen In Yellow! appeared first on PezCycling News.
