Even with the GC in an early chokehold, the Tour de France never fails to give us plenty to talk about. That’s especially true of the first week, where riders and teams are still infused with a back-at-school eagerness and the race has yet to settle.
This year’s parcours certainly helped things along; we’ve seen sprint days, big GC days, and hard transitional stages that would in the past have been reserved for much later in the race.
Let’s take a look at five of the most significant developments of the week gone by.
Tadej Pogačar looks unstoppable…
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Of course he does. With talk of ‘best ever’ condition from the Jonas Vingegaard camp, and an assertion from Visma-Lease a Bike team boss Richard Plugge that the Dane would only continue to improve following his Giro d’Italia victory, fans had every reason to believe he would give Tadej Pogačar a run for his money this year.
But such hopes appeared to evaporate in the extreme heat of southern France on Tuesday’s sixth stage to Gavarnie-Gèdre.
The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider’s attack on the Tourmalet took many by surprise. A power play this far out in the Tour (with 15 days remaining) and so far out on the stage too (his 43km solo break was a record for him in the Tour) was absolutely a bold move.
But the result justified it. He now sits 2:42 ahead of Vingegaard, who will need to come up with something special to do anything about it.
… and so do UAE Team Emirates-XRG
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There are super-teams and there’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG. At least that’s how it is on this Tour de France, where Tadej Pogačar is leading a fantasy squad of fighting fit riders all united around the Slovenian.
Future Grand Tour winner Isaac Del Toro, former TdF podium Adam Yates and an on-fire Brandon McNulty have been used to great effect in the mountains.
On paper, Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike should be able to compete, but Davide Piganzoli looks Giro-tired and Matteo Jorgenson didn’t have it on the key sixth stage. Sepp Kuss was left to put in a stirling performance, but the team will need to step it up in the coming mountains days if they want to compete with UAE.
Tom Pidcock GC ambitions tempered but he looks good for a stage
The Briton was approaching the Tour de France with a renewed sense of freedom, it seemed, that would allow him to compete without pressure, for a high place on the GC.
However the Pinarello-Q36.5 rider’s hopes, like those of several others, took a battering in the face of Tadej Pogačar’s stage six flex. He had already been dropped when the Slovenian attacked on the Tourmalet, saying afterwards that the feeling at the time was one of wanting to “hide away and bury yourself in a hole.”
He is currently 13th on GC – far from out of the picture for the top-10 – but with a 9:40 deficit to Pogačar he has a little space to challenge for stage wins too. He came close on stage nine but a misfiring shifter (and Mathieu van der Poel) scuppered those intentions. Watch this space.
Merlier rules as sprinters via for supremacy
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The sprinting world has its favourites and its underdogs, but when the Tour de France begins, all bets are off. There are way more factors at play in a bunch finish than simple peak watts – the movements of surrounding riders probably being the most significant – so exactly who will prevail is difficult to predict.
There’s rider confidence too – as Tim Merlier said after winning his first stage in Bordeaux on Friday, if a rider wins one stage he could win again. He was referencing Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), who was victorious in the first (admittedly crash-affected) bunch finish of the race in Pau.
But Soudal Quick-Step‘s Merlier doubled up with a second win on Saturday. For now he rules the sprinting roost, but with the fastmen running out of chances, others will be very keen to topple him.
The Remco & Lipo Show
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With two recent Tour de France GC podium finishers in Florian Lipowitz (3rd, 2025) and Remco Evenepoel (3rd, 2024), Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe‘s two-pronged attack is, in theory, one of the most potent in the race.
However, despite a show of unity at the pre-race press conference, that cohesion appeared to peel away in the face of Pogačar’s stage six show of strength. The younger rider Lipowitz refused to set the pace for Evenepoel during the final kilometre to Gavarnie-Gèdre, and the Belgian crossed the line spitting feathers. “I was justifiably angry,” he told media afterwards.
It remains to be see whether their relationship can be rescued in the GC cause. If not, both riders’ Tour ambitions, and Red Bull’s team unity, just took a dent.
