In case you missed it, the Tour de France is about to kick off. To mark the occasion, we’ve looked at the start list until it started to go blurry and rated the strength of every squad that will line up in Lille on Saturday 5th July 2025.
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Lotto: 3/10
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Lotto should regain WorldTour status at the end of the season but they come into this Tour de France as a ProTeam with an automatic invite. They have Arnaud De Lie in the sprints, although this has been something of a down season for the 23-year-old. He withdrew from Gent-Wevelgem and missed the rest of the Classics (a year after he was forced to skip the races with Lyme disease) through illness, the physical and mental side both taking their toll. It would be good to see him build up his confidence and racing hours again.
The team’s man to watch in the mountains will be Lennert Van Eetvelt. Also 23 years old and an exciting prospect, he won the UAE Tour and Tour of Guangxi last season and has been steadily turning the pedals this year despite a broken foot early on, taking 11th at the UAE Tour, 8th at Volta Catalunya and 15th at Romandie. However he hasn’t had the most ideal preparation for the Tour with a crash forcing him to abandon the Belgian Road Race Championship.
Team TotalEnergies: 3/10
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Despite being a French team, Team TotalEnergies rarely win at the Tour de France. So it was a particularly special moment when Anthony Turgis outsprinted the likes of Tom Pidcock, Derek Gee and Ben Healy to claim the team’s first stage since 2017 after a day of gravel. Turgis will be at the start line again this year in a predominantly French squad aside from Belgian Steff Cras, who won the opening stage at Vuelta Asturias and finished third at La Route d’Occitanie.
Mattéo Vercher came close to victory in 2024, taking second place on Stage 18 and there’s additionally Mathieu Burgaudeau to work into breakaways.
Intermarché-Wanty: 3/10
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The Intermarché-Wanty team is one that revolves around Biniam Girmay, and why shouldn’t they given the Eritrean’s three stage wins and points classification success last year? This has unfortunately not been the best start to a season for the sprinter however, with only a few second places on his palmarès behind the likes of Jordi Meeus, Matthew Brennan and Pascal Ackermann. That suggests he might have trouble when facing riders of the calibre of Jonathan Milan, Jasper Philipsen and Tim Merlier.
They also bring Georg Zimmerman, who won Il Giro d’Abruzzo in April and recently the German Road Race Championship.
Groupama-FDJ: 4/10
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Guillaume Martin has eight Tour de France participations under his belt, and has been remarkably consistent in finishing between 8th and 13th overall in five of the past six editions (the other being a DNF). Now 32 and riding for a new team in Groupama-FDJ, a continuation of that form will represent a successful Tour for the Frenchman.
Martin aside, the French outfit will mainly be targeting stage win success on home roads, naming a squad including the likes of Romain Grégoire and Valentin Madouas plus debutant Lewis Askey.
Cofidis: 4/10
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Stage wins is the name of the game for Cofidis at this year’s Tour, something the team has struggled with over the years. Yes, in 2023 Victor Lafay snuck away under the flamme rouge to surprise the field, with Ion Izagirre repeating the feat on Stage 12. Prior to this, however, their last taste of stage success in the race came all the way back in 2008.
Lafay has since departed for Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale but Izagirre is here alongside two-time stage winner Dylan Teuns and Alex Aranburu – three times a stage runner up at the Vuelta a España.
Israel-Premier Tech: 4/10
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Jake Stewart has been a speed demon as of late. He was the first to finish behind that group of GC men on the opening stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, then went on to win Stage 5 ahead of Giro points winner Jonathan Milan. This will be Stewart’s second Tour, and he’ll be hoping to make it all the way to Paris after abandoning his previous attempt in 2024. Fellow Brit and Tour de l’Avenir winner Joseph Blackmore is making his debut and there’s also Michael Woods available to try and hunt down stage wins in the mountains.
XDS Astana Team: 4.5/10
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XDS Astana Team head to the Tour off the back of an impressive stage hunting and points sweeping Giro d’Italia that resulted in the mountains classification and combativity award for Lorenzo Fortunato. Now leaving the Mark Cavendish era behind, they’ll have to turn to alternate ways to win in France and that means riders such as Clément Champoussin and Sergio Higuita will have to make it into a breakaway.
Harold Tejada too, but he is nursing a fractured hand from a crash at the Dauphiné. Mike Teunissen has won here before back in 2019 ahead of Peter Sagan and Caleb Ewan but is not the same calibre as rider he once was.
Arkéa-B&B Hotels: 4.5/10
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With both title sponsors likely to abandon ship at the end of the season, the alarm bells are ringing for Arkea-B&B and they are very much a team in need of results. Kévin Vauquelin’s impressive form this year has already delivered stage race wins, a second place in La Fleche Wallonne and a second place overall at the recent Tour de Suisse to João Almeida. With that form, he should be the man to bring home a repeat of his stage victory last year on Stage 2, he just needs to get into the breakaway.
It’s unlikely Arnaud Démare still has the pure speed to outsprint the top sprinters in the peloton, and besides, he’s always fared better at the Giro d’Italia than his home race for whatever reason.
Jayco AlUla: 5/10
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Ben O’Connor isn’t likely to repeat the same level of performance that saw him almost win last year’s Vuelta a España, mostly because doing so will mean shouldering past Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, Primož Roglič and more to get there, but he did finish just off the Tour podium in 2021 and could pack a strong top 10 finish again.
Jayco-AlUla will have two-time Vuelta stage winner Eddie Dunbar, Giro stage winner Luke Plapp and the experienced Luka Mezgec on hand to help him. There’s also former stage winner Dylan Groenewegen for the sprints, though the Dutchman hasn’t been near his best form this season, with only a couple of stage wins at the Tour of Slovenia and one at the Tour of Hungary to point to recently.
Movistar: 5/10
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The ultra-consistent Enric Mas leads the way for Movistar. Over the years, Mas has accumulated four Vuelta podiums and has twice finished within the top six of the Tour without ever looking like he has the final punch to stand on the top step of a Grand Tour podium after three weeks.
It doesn’t help his cause that he’ll have three riders around him making their Tour debut in Ivan Romeo, Riner Rubio and Will Barta. On the other hand, double Vuelta stage winner last year Pablo Castrillo could be fun to watch if he manages to get clear of the field.
Picnic PostNL: 5.5/10
A.S.O./Billy Ceusters
Another team who’ll be looking to win stages by getting into the break. Picnic PostNL had a dream start to the Tour last year with a perfect 1-2 from Romain Bardet and Frank van den Broek that resulted in the Frenchman donning the maillot jaune for the first time in his career.
Bardet retired recently at the Dauphiné but Van den Broek will be on the start line with Warren Barguil – who claimed two stages in 2017 as well as the mountains classification and combativity award – and 22-year-olds Pavel Bittner and Oscar Onley. Bittner impressed at the Vuelta by winning the stage towards Sevilla while Onley finished on the podium of the Tour de Suisse.
Bahrain Victorious: 5.5/10
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The Bahrain Victorious squad is led by Santiago Buitrago who cracked the top 10 on debut last year. He’ll have support from road captain Jack Haig in the mountains and Lenny Martinez (despite him being the second youngest rider in the race). They also have Phil Bauhaus as an option in the sprints with Robert Stannard and Fred Wright in support.
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale: 5.5/10
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Take a guess. Yes, more stage hunters! Although Felix Gall says the general classification is not his first objective, he admits that a breakaway victory ‘could enable me to gain precious places […] overall’, which in effect is him saying ‘I’m trying GC but if it doesn’t work out then I’m saying it’s just stages’.
Still, he is the only rider in the team to have won a stage before, this coming on the day Pogačar cracked towards Courchevel in 2023.
Tudor Pro Cycling: 6/10
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This is Tudor Pro Cycling’s first Tour de France, yet that doesn’t mean everyone is a newbie. Julian Alaphilippe will be leading the charge alongside Marc Hirschi particularly in the first half of the race where the hilly parcours will suit puncheurs and breakaways – unless the GC teams enforce a stranglehold on proceedings.
Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to see an Alaphilippe win?
Ineos Grenadiers: 6/10
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This is Geriant Thomas’ final Tour de France – he might have missed it too after a brief scare at the recent Tour de Suisse. The days of the 2018 Tour winner chasing a high position on GC are over – instead he will be looking to help Carlos Rodríguez to a strong finish, the latter having placed fifth overall in 2023 and seventh in 2024.
As with Movistar though, there’s a lot of riders making their debut at the Tour (Tobias Foss, Sam Watson and Axel Laurance), which probably won’t translate into the experience needed to push Rodríguez further up the standings.
Uno-X Mobility: 6.5/10
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Here’s hoping Uno-X Mobility display the same tenacity as in last year’s Tour, when Jonas Abrahamsen could barely contain himself as the flag dropped and went hunting for breakaways, sweeping up mountain jersey points and combativity awards in the process. There was a brief pre-race fright when he fractured his collarbone at the Baloise Belgium Tour last month, but a specialist has cleared him to start.
He’ll be joined on the start line by the likes of Tobias Halland Johannessen who finished fifth at the Dauphiné, Tour of Slovenia winner Anders Halland Johannessen, Norwegian Road Race Champion Andreas Leknessund, Omloop Nieuwsblad winner Søren Wærenskjold and two-time Tour stage winner Magnus Cort.
Alpecin-Deceuninck: 6.5/10
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The dynamic duo of Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel will be spearheading the Alpecin-Deceuninck attack at this year’s Tour, and with another fast finisher in Kaden Groves also in the lineup, it will be interesting to follow their fortunes. The Tour will also see Oscar Riesebeek return to racing after being the first rider to receive a suspension after being given two yellow cards in a short period of time.
EF Education EasyPost: 7/10
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It couldn’t have been easy having to change plans so late in the day after main GC threat Richard Carapaz was ruled out of the race through injury just last week, but EF have refitted themselves as a team hunting for stage wins – something that seems more likely anyway than going up against the big guns of UAE Team Emirates XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike on GC.
As such, Carapaz’s absence could be a blessing in disguise, with riders such as Ben Healy, former stage winner Kasper Asgreen, Marijn van den Berg and Neilson Powless all capable of claiming stage honours for the team.
Soudal Quick-Step: 7.5/10
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On debut last year, Remco Evenepoel was able to podium behind Pogačar and Vingegaard and take home the white jersey for best young rider. He’s in his final year of eligibility for the youth prize and will be in the running once more, but standing on the top step of the podium ahead of the two aforementioned juggernauts looks to be too much of an ask.
The team go into the Tour with a split focus between Evenepoel’s GC hopes and backing fast-finishing Tim Merlier in the sprints. He’s racked up 10 victories already this season, far more than chief rivals Jasper Philipsen (two) and Jonathan Milan (six).
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe: 7.5/10
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A podium isn’t necessarily out of reach for Primož Roglič, it’s just a question of whether he can stay upright given he’s abandoned every Tour since 2021. The team do have another GC card to play in Florian Lipowitz, however, who finished second overall at Paris-Nice, just off the podium at Itzulia Basque Country and third at the Dauphiné. This will be his third Grand Tour of his career after a DNF at the Giro and a strong 7th place at the Vuelta last year. Based on his season so far, he could just go a couple places better.
For the fast finishes, Soudal Quick-Step have Jordi Meeus (who won on the Champs-Élysées in 2023) and Danny van Poppel as leadout, although the new Netherlands Road Race Champion packs a punch that could have him winning a stage in his own right.
Lidl-Trek: 8/10
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Not only do Lidl-Trek’s strengths lie with their sprinter of Jonathan Milan – who claimed three Giro stages last year and the points jersey – but also with the power of his leadout train in Simone Consonni, Jasper Stuyven and Dylan Teuns.
The team also have a strong young rider hopeful in Mattias Skjelmose, who is looking for a high GC finish in Paris after finishing fifth at last year’s Vuelta.
UAE Team Emirates XRG: 8.5/10
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Tadej Pogačar is the strongest rider in the world right now. That’s just a fact. Not even a blip in the time-trial could faze him at the Dauphiné, where he recovered to win back-to-back stages and beat chief Tour rival Vingegaard by almost a minute. For help, UAE Team Emirates XRG has picked loyal domestique João Almeida, teeth-gritting Nils Politt and Adam Yates, who did not have the best Giro and ended up below Isaac del Toro in the pecking order. Jhonatan Narváez is making his debut.
Visma-Lease a Bike: 9/10
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By a mere whisker of a margin, Visma-Lease a Bike take the crown. Knowing Vingegaard has one stage race defeat on his palmarès to Pogačar already this season, they are doing everything possible to replicate the success of 2022 and 2023 that ended with the Dane in the maillot jaune. Half of the Tour-winning team from 2023 make the cut this year in Vingegaard, Tiesj Benoot, Sepp Kuss and Wout van Aert.
The rest of the team are no slouches either, with big engines in Victor Campenaerts, Edoardo Affini (who is making his debut after Christophe Laporte was scratched), two-time Paris-Nice champion Matteo Jorgenson and maglia rosa winner Simon Yates. They’ve already won one Grand Tour this season. Is another on the cards?
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