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BBC News
4 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
Tour de France Femmes heads into mountains for 2025
When Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney held off a spectacular chase from Demi Vollering on Alpe d'Huez last summer to win the Tour de France Femmes yellow jersey by four seconds, it was one of the most dramatic days in the recent history of women's is no wonder then that race organisers ASO have added even more mountains to the 2025 edition of the race, which begins this Saturday in Brittany before travelling southwest through the Massif Central to the Alps. This year's Tour features a record 17,240m of climbing, with three days in the high mountains packed into the final four stages. It is also the longest edition since the race was brought back in 2022, up to nine stages from eight last summer."The level in women's cycling is rising and that's why we have nine stages instead of eight. And nine hard ones," said race director Marion Rousse when the route was unveiled in Paris last first two stages are typically Breton in style, with barely a stretch of flat road in profiles resembling spring classics which could see general classification action right from the go. Back-to-back flat stages for the sprinters follow before the road starts trending Col du Beal on stage six is the first major mountain of the race, with the queen stage on day eight finishing atop the highest point of this year's Tour - the 18.6km-long, 2,000m altitude Col de la then there's the Col du Joux Plane firmly in the middle of the final day. Who are the contenders? After missing out by the narrowest of margins last August, Vollering is the rider with the stand-out pedigree this year and she comes in as the favourite to add to the yellow jersey she won in Dutchwoman, who moved to French outfit FDJ-Suez last winter, already has 10 victories in 2025, four of those general classification wins including the red jersey at the Vuelta Espana. Vollering skipped the Giro d'Italia to train at altitude in preparation and has the support of a formidable team that includes climbers Evita Muzic - fourth at last year's Tour - Juliette Labous and Elise number of strong challengers Vollering will face reflects the growing depth in the sport and narrowing of margins at the returns intent on defending her title with her form trending upwards after a bad crash in the spring hampered her early season, while Elisa Longo Borghini hopes to carry the same legs that saw her win her second Giro title a fortnight ago from Italy straight into France. Movistar rouleur Marlen Reusser is another who has been trading blows with Vollering through 2025 - finishing a minute behind her in second place at the Vuelta, but beating her to the Tour de Suisse title a few weeks later. Olympic mountain bike champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot carries French hopes for a home winner. Ferrand-Prevot has won 15 world titles - although all but one came in off-road disciplines - and has made no secret of the fact that winning yellow is the reason why she has switched back to the road after seven seasons away. In April she produced a stellar solo display to win Paris-Roubaix and her team manager Rutger Tijssen said this week that she is "completely ready physically and mentally" to do so again at the Belgian Lotte Kopecky's much-awaited tilt at the yellow jersey has been hit by a back injury which saw her forced to withdraw from the wore yellow for six stages and finished runner-up in the 2023 Tour without, in her own words, really trying to - and this year has thrown all her focus and preparation into utilising her all-round credentials to contend. She leads a strong SD Worx-Protime team that also features Anna van der Breggen, who returned to the peloton in January three years after retiring having previously dominated the sport. The team say both are to target stage wins and take the GC "day to day" but writing either off for yellow is surely a mistake. Who else to watch? Fresh off winning the British road race title less than a month ago in what was the first professional win of her career, Millie Couzens will be wearing her new national champion's jersey as one of four British riders in the her Fenix-Deceunick team-mate Flora Perkins and Visma's Imogen Wolff - who at 19 is the youngest rider of the 154 starters in the race - are all making their Tour debuts, while Picnic PostNL rider Pfeiffer Georgi is likely to be eyeing a stage win in the opening days after a crash ended her Tour earlier last Lorena Wiebes remains the fastest rider in the peloton and has the most wins so far in 2025 with 14, but she will face stiff competition from the likes of Charlotte Kool (Picnic PostNL) and last year's green jersey winner Marianne Vos in the points classification. Stage-by-stage list Saturday, 26 July - stage one: Vannes - Plumelec, 78.8kmSunday, 27 July - stage two: Brest - Quimper, 110.4km Monday, 28 July - stage three: La Gacilly - Angers, 163.5km Tuesday, 29 July - stage four: Saumur - Poitiers, 130.7kmWednesday, 30 July - stage five: Chasseneuil-du-Poitou Futuroscope - Gueret, 165.8kmThursday, 31 July - stage six: Clermont-Ferrand - Ambert, 123.7kmFriday, 1 August - stage seven: Bourg-en-Bresse - Chambery, 159.7kmSaturday, 2 August - stage eight: Chambery - Saint Francois Longchamp - Col de la Madeleine, 111.9kmSunday, 3 August - stage nine: Praz-sur-Arly - Chatel, 124.1km
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
A Bastille Day Tour victory for Bury rider Simon Yates
Bury's Simon Yates won stage 10 of the Tour de France on Bastille Day on Monday. Yates, who triumphed in his second Grand Tour at the Giro d'Italia in June, timed his attack superbly on the final ascent of the 165.3km stage from Ennezat - Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy after being part of a long-range breakaway. That group of 28 riders was whittled down significantly on a punishing day through the Massif Central that contained eight categorised climbs, with the Visma-Lease a Bike rider pulling clear in the closing stages. 'I didn't even feel that good,' admitted Yates to Cycling Weekly after winning what was his third career Tour stage victory. 'It was a really hard start to be there. And that's why I took advantage into the final corners at the bottom of the last descent, because I was looking for a bit of a head start; And I just did my best from there. 'It's been a long time. I was not really expecting any opportunities here. We came here fully focused on Jonas and the GC. 'The stage played out in a way that I could be there and I took it with both hands.' Yates said he'd had a tough start to the Tour, and was still tired after his Giro d'Italia overall victory. He added: 'It's not easy, I'm still a bit tired from there but I'm getting better every day. I was a bit rusty at the start but I've been growing into the race.' Ineos Grenadiers' Dutch climber Arensman finished second, with Healy, who was born in the West Midlands, coming home in third and jumping to the top of the general classification, 29 seconds ahead of defending champion Tadej Pogacar. After a rest day on Tuesday, racing resumes on Wednesday with a 156.8km route around Toulouse. The first big day in the Pyrenees arrives on Thursday with a trip up to the ski resort at Hautacam. After Monday's stage 10 triumph, former Bury Clarion star Yates sat 23rd in the overall classification. Twin brother Adam, riding for UAE Team Emirates XRG, was placed 44th in the general classification after a 24th spot on stage 10.
New York Times
16-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
‘Not every story is a fairytale' – Inside the Cofidis team car on France's national holiday
The wooded slopes of the Col de la Croix Saint-Robert are lined with polka dots and screaming fans. Camper vans are parked nose to tail; a washing line stretches from the roof of one to a nearby tree branch. Three T-shirts are drying in the correct order — one blue, one white, one red. Underneath, a woman in leopard-print trousers has her own French flag draped around her shoulders. Even here, eight kilometers from the closest town, she drinks white wine from a real glass. Advertisement Welcome to Bastille Day in the Massif Central. France's national day always comes midway through the Tour — this year, organizers pushed back the traditional second Monday rest day, to give the masses their racing. Each year, July 14 marks the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789, a flashpoint of the French revolution. This month, French cycling is still waiting for its own spark. No French rider has won a stage of this Tour, nor even come particularly close — the last domestic stage winner was Anthony Turgis on stage nine of 2024's edition. Increasingly, espoir has been turning into désespoir — hope into desperation. But now, as it has always been, Bastille Day is the day that can right all wrongs. French teams are desperate to perform on a national holiday — for a home rider, winning on July 14 can crown a career. David Moncoutie could barely speak after soloing to victory in Digne-les-Bains back in 2005, repeating like a broken toy: 'I'm just too happy, too happy!' There has been just one French Bastille Day victory since. 'Sometimes I think it's too much pressure for the French teams that day,' says Sebastien Joly, a coach at fellow French squad Decathlon-AG2R. 'Riders are expected just to do everything and anything. So you have to be focused, you have to ride to a plan.' Back then, Moncoutie was riding for Cofidis, one of France's most historic teams. That was the end of their golden era — over the previous decade, they had boasted riders such as Frank Vandenbroucke, David Millar, and Lance Armstrong. One of Moncoutie's teammates in that race was compatriot Cedric Vasseur, himself a two-time stage winner in 1997 and 2007, who now serves as the team's general manager. But in truth, the team has not experienced a vintage season in 20 years. Victor Lafay's stage victory in 2023 ended a 15-year Tour drought, but failed to rejuvenate the team. They are now at risk of relegation from the top-tier WorldTour, and were the final team in this year's race to record a top-10 finish, having to wait eight days for sprinter Bryan Coquard's seventh place in Laval. Advertisement That is not to say it has not been tumultuous. The team had 13 bicycles worth a total of €143,000 stolen before stage two, eventually recovered with the help of French police, and were only able to compete that day due to the proximity of their headquarters in north eastern France. One day later, Coquard inadvertently crashed into Alpecin-Deceuninck's Jasper Philipsen during a sprint, breaking the Belgian's collarbone, and forcing him to abandon the race. Coquard was in tears on the bus afterwards, with the team forced to release a statement pleading for kindness on social media. In their search for results, Cofidis' squad is taking on an increasingly international flavour — there is a heavy Basque influence amidst the team's coaching staff and top riders — but they still have four Frenchmen in their Tour squad. With limited opportunities for wins, Bastille Day is a stage they have to target. They have no choice. 'It's a very important day,' says Vasseur from outside the team bus. He prowls around the bikes, grabbing riders by the shoulder and rubbing their backs. 'It's July 14, the French national day, and it's a very steep and hilly stage. If you have to choose one day to do something, to do something great, it's today. The TV, on the road, there will be a huge audience. Today is a day you cannot miss.' Cofidis are pinning their hopes on the four climbers in their team — Emanuel Buchmann, Ion Izagirre, Dylan Teuns, and Alex Aranburu. 'It's French day, but we know our strongest guys here are not French,' Vasseur adds. The plan is for Buchmann to try to stick with the general classification (GC) favourites, protecting his own hopes of a top-15 finish, while Izagirre, Teuns, and Araburu have been ordered to infiltrate the breakaway. With around a dozen other teams also targeting the stage, this alone is a challenging task. Advertisement 'There's only a 50-50 chance that the GC favorites let the break go,' says Vasseur. 'So to win, you need really strong guys in the break. They'll need a lead of three or four minutes if they're to hold on against (Jonas) Vingegaard and (Tadej) Pogačar.' Izagirre was perhaps the team's best chance of success, but the Basque rider crashed the previous day. His body is tender, skin abraded like a fishing net left in the sun. Making the break appears a pipedream. As one of UAE's team cars passes, two Cofidis mechanics call out to them, asking them to let the breakaway go. 'We're expecting a lot of chaos at the beginning,' says Teuns, a two-time Tour stage winner at other teams, and champion at the prestigious Fleche Wallonne three years ago. 'We'll try to get in a lot of moves, but you also have to be conservative with the bullets you have. Don't shoot them all in the first 30 kilometers. It could take a long time today to go in the break.' Outside the roped-off warm-up area of Cofidis' bus, the Bastille Day atmosphere is rising. If you were asked to label France on a map, Ennezat would be the point of the pin, a small commune deep in its rolling heart. Julian Alaphilippe rides by, today's stage is just an hour from his home town. The crowd is so febrile that a Tudor Cycling staff member has to clear his way on a scooter, ringing her bell like a breaker cleaving ice. The temperature, however, is stifling. As the Tour's caravan rolls through, several tricolores daubed on cheeks run with sweat in the midday sun. Thirty minutes later, it is Gorka Gerrikagoitia piloting his way through the throng. He is driving one of Cofidis' three support cars, in second position on the road. One of the team's directeur sportifs, responsible for setting strategy throughout the door, he was a professional rider himself in the early 2000s. Still boasting the lithe body of a climber, he completed the Vuelta a Espana on three occasions. The 165 km stage to Mont-Dore is the toughest day of the race so far. With 4,450 meters of climbing, plus a mini-summit finish, Gerrikagoitia believes that 'the Tour de France, for the GC riders, begins today'. With the favorites boasting fresh legs after two easier sprint days, the pace was expected to be punishingly high — even if the previous day's stage was the second-fastest in Tour history. Advertisement Gerrikagoitia's first job is to get out of Ennezat before the race, waiting ahead of the riders with bidons to refresh them in the 86F (30C) heat. Châtel-Guyon is the first new town of the race, and as the Cofidis DS weaves through the closed streets, its inhabitants are three-deep on the roadside. Every table in a 20 km radium seems to be out, dusted and polished — restaurant, plastic garden, kitchen dining sets. Most jerseys on the roadside belong to FDJ, a de facto French national team, but there is representation too for second division TotalEnergies, as well as Breton squad Arkea-B&B Hotels, whose star rider, third-placed Kevin Vauquelin, is the highest-positioned Frenchman on GC. A shirtless teenage boy runs alongside the car for 100 meters. 'Has the race started yet, mister?' And then, on the final bend out of town, a couple sit with Cofidis shirts and under a Cofidis flag, appearing to have been encamped so long that weeds have grown from the legs of their camping chairs. Gerrikagoitia sounds the horn for them, a musical siren sound. The race begins for real at 1.25pm, not that Gerrikagoitia can see. The majority of teams in the peloton use Starlink to stream race footage directly to their cars, but Cofidis do not have the budget. 'You can't do your job the same,' he says. 'Communication is so important. So we have to rely on good radio and teamwork.' He attaches his phone to the dashboard using some hair bands, but on these mountain roads, the signal is intermittent. Instead, the team cars use radio and roadside soigneurs to update each other on which riders are in which group. Alaphilippe attacks almost immediately, racing down the descent towards Châtel-Guyon. A family in matching Zinedine Zidane jerseys watch him zoom past, but he is left to hang off the front by the rest of the peloton. The real breakaway begins on the first slope out the town, a strong one, including Bahrain Victorious' French rider Lenny Martinez, stage six winner Ben Healy, American champion Quinn Simmons, and Ben O'Connor, second in last year's Vuelta. Twenty rivals have escaped the peloton, but not one Cofidis rider has managed to infiltrate them. What's more just one team member — Teuns — is even in the main peloton. Their GC hopeful Buchmann has been dropped. Gerrikagoitia pushes air through his teeth, sharply. Izagirre and Aranburu have lost contact too. Fewer than 10 km have passed. It is a brutal start. Advertisement 'Keep riding,' implores Bingen Fernandez, another DS, riding in Cofidis' first car. 'The peloton is going to start to slow. Start to enter the peloton.' Minutes later, another message to Buchmann. 'It's getting easier, keep fighting, keep fighting, eh? Allez, allez, allez. After the curve it is easier.' Buchmann responds, hauling himself back into the peloton on the descent into the city of Clermont-Ferrand. He will battle to remain there all day. 'I think he maybe needed to warm-up a little more beforehand,' says Gerrikagoitia. 'At the end, he'll be faster than the beginning.' The crowds remain. 'Where is Bardet?' asks one roadside banner, asking after the local hero, who retired after the Criterium du Dauphine last month. Well, Romain Bardet is handing out bidons midway through the route, standing on the verge in a Picnic-PostNL jersey. Coquard, one of the team's French riders, drops back to the team car from the last group on the road. It is a hot day, but the sprinter is sick of jels. He asks Gerrikagoitia if he has any proper food to eat. The answer, a sandwich, is not what Coquard wants to hear. He rises from his saddle and returns to the bunch. By now, the race situation is becoming clear. The breakaway is too far up the road, with UAE Team Emirates and Visma Lease-a-Bike seemingly happy to let them fight it out for the stage win. There will be no Cofidis victory today. Buchmann is the only rider left in the main peloton, while several other riders are in the grupetto — non-climbers who are fighting to remain inside the time limit. Under Tour rules, all riders must finish within a certain percentage of the winners' time to remain in the race, with further adjustments made for the wind. On Monday, the limit was 17 percent — meaning all riders had to finish within 44 minutes of the first rider crossing the line. With the grupetto already 25 minutes behind the breakaway with 40 hard kilometers of the stage remaining, the time limit was a concern. Advertisement 'It could be (Ben) Healy, it could be (Pablo) Castrillo,' says Gerrikagoitia, analysing the possible winners from the breakaway. 'The breakaway has four minutes over the peloton. They were too fast for us. When you are close to relegation, it is not easy.' And relegation is a real concern. Only the top 18 ranked teams over the past three years will stay on the WorldTour next season, to be guaranteed entry to the sport's most prestigious races. Cofidis are currently 19th, one place and almost 900 points short of safety. Gerrikagoitia was part of the team's staff when Lafay and Izagirre won Tour stages two years ago, and is visibly upset about their predicament. 'It's difficult to understand why we're at this level,' he says. 'We're doing all we can to improve, and for sure, it's not an ideal situation if we're not in the WorldTour. The sponsor in Cofidis will continue, but not at the same level, not with the same budget. 'And this is also the point — if you want to stay in the WorldTour, you need a certain level of rider. But right now, it's difficult to sign them.' In the closing kilometers of the stage, the race radio begins to call out the name of the leaders. All 5G signal for Gerrikagoitia's phone coverage of the race has disappeared by now. In the lead group, there will be no French victory — Simon Yates is fighting with Thymen Arensman for victory, while Healy is riding himself into yellow, the first Irishman to wear the maillot jaune in 38 years. But the name that Gerrikagoitia is listening out for comes later on, as those remaining in the GC group are slowly listed. Pogačar, Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel… At that moment, Matteo Jorgenson attacks for Visma Lease-a-Bike, attempting to tire Pogačar, his teammate's rival. 'It will be a different race now,' says Gerrikagoitia. 'Now they're all attacking, the bunch will be broken.' The news filters through from the radio. Buchmann has been dropped again. 'Aiii,' Gerrikagoitia sighs, as the bunch reduces to 20 riders. The final minutes are tough for Buchmann, and equally tough for the DS, stuck behind the grupetto, who cannot see how his rider is doing. Eventually the news filters through. Buchmann finishes 43rd on the stage, losing almost seven minutes to the GC favorites. He now sits 20th in the race, over eight minutes behind the top 15. The grupetto makes it to the line in time, while the highest-finishing Frenchman is Martinez in eighth, who crosses the line ahead of Pogačar and Vingegaard, his nose bleeding with the exertion. Advertisement 'I was hoping for a better race in the mountains today,' says Buchmann post-race. 'Today I had super bad legs, and was suffering all day. I lost a lot of time. So now we'll need to switch towards stage hunting, or to go for the breakaways. But this is how it is. We have to keep fighting.' It is a four-hour drive to Toulouse, and a desperately-needed rest day. As soon as the final climbers trickle back to the buses from the climb, Cofidis set off towards their next opportunity to save themselves. 'Not every story is a fairytale,' one staff member says that evening. 'But for most teams, this is the real experience of the Tour de France.' (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Photos via Cofidis)
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Tour de France's phoney war gets dose of reality as Pogacar v Vingegaard hits the mountains
There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France's first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year's race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It's a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour's opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive. Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up. Only Visma's management know if this was the case, but what is certain is that the febrile atmosphere between the two teams will intensify from here on in. In that context, Monday's slog through the Massif Central was a score draw between the two armadas. Pogacar could afford to lose yellow to Ben Healy of Ireland as it buys his UAE team some down time at least on Wednesday and Thursday, when Healy's EF squad will have to control the race. On the other hand, Simon Yates's opportunistic stage win on Monday redressed the balance a little in favour of Visma; at this stage of the Tour, any amount of positive momentum is welcome. The tone had been set for the opening 10 days – and possibly the whole Tour – about 15km from the finish of the first stage into Lille on 5 July when Vingegaard and his lieutenants Matteo Jorgenson and Edoardo Affini surged to the front of the peloton in a cross wind and split the race. Pogacar was not to be caught out, but only one of his men made the split of about 40; Vingegaard, on the other hand, had three with him. Visma have no option but to try to find openings, to probe UAE's defences constantly to seek the single chink in the armour that may enable their leader to pull back some of his 1min 17sec deficit to Pogacar. Hence an abortive attempt to split the field on Sunday into Châteauroux led by Wout van Aert, and Monday's classic display of tactical mountain racing, with Yates and the Belgian Victor Campenaerts sent ahead in a breakaway just in case either Vingegaard or Jorgenson managed to elude Pogacar and his men. This kind of racing has paid massive dividends for the Dutch squad in the past, most recently at the Giro d'Italia, where Yates managed an unlikely overall victory with the support of Van Aert, at the expense of UAE's starlet Isaac del Toro. The scenario that is the stuff of nightmares for the UAE management is the one that Visma (in their previous incarnation as Jumbo-Visma) engineered in 2022, when UAE were first reduced in numbers by illness, and were then put to the sword by Vingegaard, Van Aert and Primoz Roglic in the Alps. Roglic has moved on, but Jorgenson is an adequate replacement; he has twice won the Paris-Nice stage race and finished eighth in the Tour last year while supporting Vingegaard. The obvious tactic for Visma in the next 10 days will be to burn off Pogacar's support riders to engineer a situation in which the Slovenian ends up on his own on a mountain with Jorgenson and Vingegaard, who can attack him one by one. Pogacar may well prove equal to the task, but there is only one way to find out. Any one of the four high mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees would be adequate, and they only need Pogacar to flinch once. Nerves will have been sharpened by João Almeida's heavy crash on Friday en route to Mûr-de-Bretagne, which forced him to quit the race on Sunday. With Rafal Majka sitting out this Tour, that has deprived the double Tour winner of his principal mountain wingman. Almeida – 'the best teammate in the world,' as Pogacar put it – would have provided substantial support: he has notched up nine wins this year, including the Tour of Switzerland. 'Someone will have to step in,' said the UAE director of sport, Simone Pedrazzini, but the uncomfortable fact is that Almeida offered a back-up option, a man who could mark a breakaway and potentially work towards finishing on the podium. Neither Adam Yates or Jhonatan Narváez is a like-for-like replacement, while another UAE climber, Pavel Sivakov, looked distinctly out of sorts on Sunday and Monday. UAE will need him to recover during Tuesday's rest day. There are questions around Visma as well. Yates's stage win on Monday suggests he is back to top form after his struggles on the opening stage, but thus far Van Aert has blown hot and cold, completely absent at times, shy of his best at others, but capable of finishing second to Jonathan Milan on Saturday into Laval. It remains to be seen if he is merely riding himself in having taken a break after the Giro. In past Tours, he has proven capable of smashing the entire race into smithereens on any mountain stage, and if Visma are hoping to take the fight to UAE in the next 10 days, they need him to quickly rediscover that same blistering form.
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Tour de France's phoney war gets dose of reality as Pogacar v Vingegaard hits the mountains
There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France's first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year's race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It's a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour's opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive. Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up. Only Visma's management know if this was the case, but what is certain is that the febrile atmosphere between the two teams will intensify from here on in. In that context, Monday's slog through the Massif Central was a score draw between the two armadas. Pogacar could afford to lose yellow to Ben Healy of Ireland as it buys his UAE team some down time at least on Wednesday and Thursday, when Healy's EF squad will have to control the race. On the other hand, Simon Yates's opportunistic stage win on Monday redressed the balance a little in favour of Visma; at this stage of the Tour, any amount of positive momentum is welcome. The tone had been set for the opening 10 days – and possibly the whole Tour – about 15km from the finish of the first stage into Lille on 5 July when Vingegaard and his lieutenants Matteo Jorgenson and Edoardo Affini surged to the front of the peloton in a cross wind and split the race. Pogacar was not to be caught out, but only one of his men made the split of about 40; Vingegaard, on the other hand, had three with him. Visma have no option but to try to find openings, to probe UAE's defences constantly to seek the single chink in the armour that may enable their leader to pull back some of his 1min 17sec deficit to Pogacar. Hence an abortive attempt to split the field on Sunday into Châteauroux led by Wout van Aert, and Monday's classic display of tactical mountain racing, with Yates and the Belgian Victor Campenaerts sent ahead in a breakaway just in case either Vingegaard or Jorgenson managed to elude Pogacar and his men. This kind of racing has paid massive dividends for the Dutch squad in the past, most recently at the Giro d'Italia, where Yates managed an unlikely overall victory with the support of Van Aert, at the expense of UAE's starlet Isaac del Toro. The scenario that is the stuff of nightmares for the UAE management is the one that Visma (in their previous incarnation as Jumbo-Visma) engineered in 2022, when UAE were first reduced in numbers by illness, and were then put to the sword by Vingegaard, Van Aert and Primoz Roglic in the Alps. Roglic has moved on, but Jorgenson is an adequate replacement; he has twice won the Paris-Nice stage race and finished eighth in the Tour last year while supporting Vingegaard. The obvious tactic for Visma in the next 10 days will be to burn off Pogacar's support riders to engineer a situation in which the Slovenian ends up on his own on a mountain with Jorgenson and Vingegaard, who can attack him one by one. Pogacar may well prove equal to the task, but there is only one way to find out. Any one of the four high mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees would be adequate, and they only need Pogacar to flinch once. Nerves will have been sharpened by João Almeida's heavy crash on Friday en route to Mûr-de-Bretagne, which forced him to quit the race on Sunday. With Rafal Majka sitting out this Tour, that has deprived the double Tour winner of his principal mountain wingman. Almeida – 'the best teammate in the world,' as Pogacar put it – would have provided substantial support: he has notched up nine wins this year, including the Tour of Switzerland. 'Someone will have to step in,' said the UAE director of sport, Simone Pedrazzini, but the uncomfortable fact is that Almeida offered a back-up option, a man who could mark a breakaway and potentially work towards finishing on the podium. Neither Adam Yates or Jhonatan Narváez is a like-for-like replacement, while another UAE climber, Pavel Sivakov, looked distinctly out of sorts on Sunday and Monday. UAE will need him to recover during Tuesday's rest day. There are questions around Visma as well. Yates's stage win on Monday suggests he is back to top form after his struggles on the opening stage, but thus far Van Aert has blown hot and cold, completely absent at times, shy of his best at others, but capable of finishing second to Jonathan Milan on Saturday into Laval. It remains to be seen if he is merely riding himself in having taken a break after the Giro. In past Tours, he has proven capable of smashing the entire race into smithereens on any mountain stage, and if Visma are hoping to take the fight to UAE in the next 10 days, they need him to quickly rediscover that same blistering form.
