A devastating sprint saw Jasper Philipsen storm to his tenth Tour de France stage victory and his first ever overall lead in the race on Saturday.
Philipsen won from a reduced peloton after a late echelon split left Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) 39 seconds adrift of the other top favourites.
Several bike lengths behind Philipsen on a fraught, crash-filled stage starting and finishing in Lille Métropole, Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) made strides toward a repeat green jersey with second on the stage and third in the intermediate sprint. Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) was third at the line.
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Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) made the 38-rider lead group but it was Alpecin-Deceuninck who had the numbers, with Van der Poel finally providing Philipsen with the perfect leadout at the end of a dramatic day.
The big GC losers on the day, though, were Evenepoel and Roglič, caught on the wrong side of a split inspired by Visma-Lease a Bike that formed in incessant cross winds with some 15 kilometres to go.
While Roglič and Evenepoel had to rue an important time loss already on day one, Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) was even more unfortunate, crashing heavily and then becoming the 2025 Tour’s first abandon mid-way through the stage.
The stage victory gives Philipsen the first race leader’s jersey of the race as well as the first green jersey. Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) leads the mountains classification after claiming two points from the day’s breakaway while Girmay, 25, is the best young rider.
“It’s really amazing, this tenth victory is something I’ll never forget,” Philipsen said about how he made it into double figures in the Tour.
“Just the team performance – we were up there all day. It was very nervous but today just had to be our day and we had to be in the front and we were there in the split, the team did amazing, and in the end we just had to use our strength, be there and finish it off.
“Of course I knew I had really good legs, and the final two kilometres with all the people gave me goosebumps. I knew we just had to do it and my legs got some extra strength because of the adrenaline riding through Lille. It was just an incredible feeling.”
How it unfolded
The early breakaway on stage 1 (Image credit: Getty Images)
No sooner had race director Christian Prudhomme blown his whistle to signal the off than five riders went clear: Jonas Rutsch (Intermarché-Wanty), Mathis Le Berre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Bruno Armiral (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies). In no time at all, the quintet opened up the gap of 90 seconds and counting, while the peloton settled down to a much steadier pace behind. It was only when the five’s margin reached 2:30 that Alpecin-Deceuninck began tapping out a steady but not overly fast rhythm on the front of the bunch.
After a very quiet opening hour, things began to hot up in the battle for the first categorized climb of the Tour, the Côte de Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. On the very narrow road, packed with spectators, French TT National Champion Armirail went from distance but it was to no avail, and instead it was 2024 Giro d’Italia stage winner Benjamin Thomas who crossed the summit line in first place. Meanwhile Deceuninck received extra support from Lidl-Trek’s Quinn Simmons to keep the pace high behind.
The breakaway rides through a field (Image credit: Getty Images)
The bunch’s speed remained notably higher following the climb, perhaps explaining why after a crash-free start to the first third of the stage, Ganna was unlucky enough to come down heavily on a right-hand bend. Able to get back up relatively quickly but also in need of a spare bike, after various checks from race medics he began riding, only to find he had a broken right shoe that needed replacing. However, that proved to be the least of his woes as the pain from the crash visibly increased and after a long struggle to remain in the race, the Italian TT champion later abandoned.
Gannas was the first but not the only rider in trouble as the day abruptly turned fraught after its calm beginning and riders began crashing in fast-rising numbers. Another top time triallist, Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon AG2R) collided with a spectator and later became the second rider after Ganna to quit the race, while Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) was also a heavy faller in his Tour de France debut, and each time the camera panned backwards behind the peloton, it was to pick up on yet another group of stragglers.
Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar push the pace (Image credit: Getty Images)
The series of spills and setbacks created much more tension in the peloton, encouraging squads like UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike, to mass at the front and the five leaders’ advantage to shrink notably. At the same time Bahrain Victorious leader Lenny Martínez, possibly because of illness, found himself out the back for much of the stage and would finally lose nine minutes on a disastrous day for the young Frenchman.
With 105 kilometres to go, the opening break was finally sucked back in, even as Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) suffered a mechanical and also began to suffer, while Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) was also reportedly dropped. Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) used a fine lead-out to snatch maximum points in the intermediate sprint, while Philipsen, blocked behind French fastman Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) was unable to really get on terms and had to settle for fourth: later on though, the Belgian would bounce back with a vengeance.
An attack by the seemingly indefatigable Vercher, quickly joined by Ben Thomas again, saw another move go clear and the peloton – finally – quieten down again. Thomas was clearly keen to go for more points in the King of the Mountains competition, and the two gained a minute’s advantage.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Riding over the cobbles of the Mont Cassel, Thomas took the sprint for the summit, only for the two breakaways to collide immediately afterwards, and hit the deck. Thomas could claim the first mountains’ title of the 2025 Tour de France as a result of his scant advantage, but after the peloton overtook the fallen duo, his injuries also forced the Frenchman to visit the doctor several times as the race began winding back towards Lille.
Yet more opportunities for crosswinds, touching over 50kmh at times, emerged in the final 40 kilometres on what had already been a fraught, crash-filled day. Initially, with repeated warnings from sports directors crackling in their ears, although the pace grew notably thanks to Alpecin and Soudal, nobody was caught out. However, as the roads flattened into broad highways leading back to Lille with 17 kilometres to go, Visma-Lease a Bike unfurled another concerted acceleration, and this time it caused the bunch to crumble completely and definitively.
Pogačar was ahead with Time Wellens in the 40-strong lead group, as was Vingegaard, but two key men missing from the mix, in what seemed to be like the last major danger point for crosswinds on stage 1, were Evenepoel and Primoz Roglič.
Evenepoel’s challenges did not end there as he was forced at one point to swerve onto a grass verge, fortunately staying upright. But in any case Alpecin-Deceuninck, oblivious to the Belgian’s challenges but present in numbers on the front were visibly determined to press on and they joined forces with Vingegaard’s troops. Then when Belgian National Champion Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) began contributing, the gap between the two groups yawned quickly open to 25 seconds and by the finish line it stood at 39 seconds.
Behind Soudal-QuickStep and Lidl-Trek offered the most resistance to the concerted Deceuninck-Visma drive ahead in the 40-strong lead group. But Visma had said before the Tour they were going to be present in the race with a Classics-style group to back Vingegaard and their policy paid off perfectly fron the word go, while Deceuninck, too, were never going to turn a chance like this down. “It was all day a fight to be there at the moment, always a lot of stress for not much actually happening and then suddenly in the last 15 kilometres it all opened up,” Philipsen said later. “It was a hell of an opportunity and I’m so glad we took it.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
There was time for yet more drama in the suburbs of Lille, as Ben O’Connor (Jayco-AlUla) was unlucky enough to fall, though fortunately it was inside the ‘secure zone’ of five-kilometres-or-less before the finish. Vingegaard and Pogačar briefly hovered at the front of the lead, but as Alpecin-Deceuninck made their presence known again, there was to be no repeat of the Dauphiné’s opening stage, where the late attacks by the Dane had foiled the sprinters.
Instead a magnificent leadout from Van der Poel saw Philipsen come surging down the right-hand side of the road, and although Girmay was able to limit the gap, the Belgian star fastman had an ample advantage by the time he crossed the line. The other sprinters will have a chance again as soon as Monday at Dunkerque, but for Evenepoel and Roglič, though, the effects of their opening setback will likely endure for considerably more than a single stage.
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