Six Grand Tours. Six different winners.
Yes, it’s all over for another year, so it’s time to look back and rank the men’s and women’s Grand Tours in 2025, let us know what we got wrong.
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6. Men’s Vuelta a España
Harry Talbot
Shortened and cancelled stages.
Coming in in last place, unsurprisingly, is the men’s Vuelta a España. Cycling does not exist in a bubble, sport is political – especially cycling – and protests are not the reason this Grand Tour is in last place. But it certainly didn’t help its ranking have cancelled and shortened stages.
There were some memorable moments though. Just look at Egan Bernal’s first win since the 2021 Giro d’Italia, having worked his way back from a life-threatening crash and from a point where even walking again was an achievement. Tom Pidcock seized the opportunity to ride for GC with both hands, storming his way to third overall, his best result yet in a Grand Tour in his first year post-Ineos. Then there’s Soudal-QuickStep’s Mikel Landa who rolled back the years. Ah, Landismo. Never change.
5. La Vuelta Femenina
Unipublic/Rafa Gómez/Sprint Cycling Agency
Dutch domination.
La Vuelta Femenina is still a relatively young race. It has been a feature for the peloton for a decade but has taken many forms over the years, initially a one-day attached to the men’s Vuelta a España under the name ‘Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta’.
It’s only since 2023 that it has been ridden under the La Vuelta Femenina banner with an increase in stages to make it worthy of the Grand Tour name for the women’s peloton. The 2025 edition was a week-long race but was a little more mountainous than its predecessors, with a couple of big stages in the Asturias to decide the GC.
The opening day team time-trial was a farce, with several teams late to the start after delays having their bikes inspected. Aside from the TTT, which was ultimately won by Lidl-Trek, it was a race dominated by Dutchwomen. Two victories went to Marianne Vos and Demi Vollering, and SD Worx-Protime’s pair of Femke Gerritse and the returning Anna van der Breggen also claimed a stage each.
Vollering would work her way into the lead after winning Stage 5 to Lagunas de Neila, cementing her second Vuelta victory with a short solo attack on the final day.
4. Giro d’Italia Women
Luc Claessen via Getty Images
Elisa Longo Borghini retains title.
Expectations were high heading into the 2025 edition of the Giro d’Italia Women. The previous edition had gone down to the wire between Elisa Longo Borghini and Lotte Kopecky, only one second separating the pair at the start of the final day.
This year, it would be a battle between Longo Borghini and the rising force of Movistar’s Marlen Reusser. The best against the clock for the first stage, Reusser pulled on the maglia rosa early and briefly lent it to Lidl-Trek’s Anna Henderson before the threads returned to cloak her shoulders for the final weekend showdown.
AG Insurance-Soudal’s Sarah Gigante set the tone for her season with a resounding performance on Stage 7 that earned her a breakaway victory after she distanced Longo Borghini on Monte Nerone. The UAE Team ADQ leader usurped Reusser in the standings to carve out an advantage of 22 seconds as her Swiss rival struggled with illness.
The hilly last day finished in Imola on the Autodrome Enzo and Dino Ferrari in a two-woman sprint between Liane Lippert and Anna van der Breggen. The German prevailed but the last bonus seconds were still up for grabs, so there was to be a fast finish between the top two on GC to grab them.
Despite Reusser claiming the extra four seconds, Longo Borghini managed to retain her title. In the form she was in this year, if Reusser is able to avoid illness in 2026, we could be in for quite the GC battles.
3. Men’s Tour de France
Xavier Pereyron
The fight for third trounced the fight for yellow.
Another Tour de France, another showdown between Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, two all-time giants of the sport.
Vingegaard lost time early this year on the Stage 5 time-trial, and he could never recount his losses, shedding almost three minutes as a result of Pogačar’s demolition on the Hautacam in the second week. The trend continued through the Pyrenees. While he remained best of the rest, the Dane could only continue to lose time to first place and sat 4min 13sec down after Superbagnères.
Grand Tours can change in a moment’s notice but it was a sewn-up race for the top step by the final week. The most exciting battle therefore came in the form of Florian Lipowitz vs Oscar Onley. Thanks to his outrageous day in the saddle on the Col de la Loze, Picnic-PostNL’s Onley closed the gap to Lipowitz to a matter of 22 seconds. Lipowitz however managed to stick with the leading group the following day on La Plagne as Onley rode backwards, extending the gap to over a minute. The final spot on the podium was secured.
Away from the two young guns, another standout of the Tour came in the form of EF Education-EaysPost’s Ben Healy. He became the first Irishman in 38 years to don the maillot jaune after his victory on Stage 6 and raced to second on the Mont Ventoux stage on the way to an impressive top ten overall. It was incredible to watch.
2. Tour de France Femmes
Szymon Gruchalski/Getty Images
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot runs wild in the mountains.
First things first. This has been a return and a half for Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who has been busy sweeping up races that weren’t even on the calendar when she last raced on the road. After her victory at Paris-Roubaix Femmes came the big goal: the Tour de France Femmes.
It was during the final weekend that the Frenchwoman really turned on the afterburners. The queen stage was a 112km day finishing atop the Col de la Madeleine. Ferrand-Prévot escaped from the chasing group to catch the day’s leaders before ditching them in the closing kilometres on the brutal slopes. She would pull on the maillot jaune with a huge lead of over two and a half minutes from the closest challenger Sarah Gigante.
The final stage was another brute, with the HC Col de Joux Plane sandwiched between two Category 1 climbs before a gradual incline to the finish in Châtel. It was on the last uphill stretch that she would pounce again, leaving the rest of the field in her wake. As Ferrand-Prévot crept closer to the finish line, she could relish in the fact she would become the first French rider to win the Tour de France Femmes, topping the standings by 3min 42sec from Demi Vollering in second.
AG Insurance-Soudal were undoubtably the team of the race with Kim Le Court-Pienaar, Gigante and Justine Ghekiere all making headlines. Le Court-Pienaar became the first African woman to wear the maillot jaune, holding the jersey for four days, and Gigante continued her breakout season with a commanding show that saw her almost end up second on GC. Ghekiere was the teammate MVP of the race, helping Gigante and hauling her squad to their finishing positions.
UAE Team ADQ’s Maëva Squiban probably couldn’t believe how her race unravelled. Despite an initial setback for the squad with the abandon of team leader Elisa Longo Borghini, Squiban’s newfound freedom resulted in two consecutive breakaway stage wins. She was one of three riders to notch two victories, with Ferrand-Prévot and SD Worx-Protime’s supreme sprinter Lorena Wiebes also joining her to sweep up the stages.
1. Men’s Giro d’Italia
Tim de Waele/Getty Images
Simon Yates grabs bull by horns.
It was a captivating Giro d’Italia. The emergence of Isaac del Toro as a Grand Tour contender for UAE Team Emirates XRG and that face-off between the Mexican and Richard Carapaz on the Colle delle Finestre while silent assassin Simon Yates banished the demons of his past.
Del Toro’s rise truly began on Stage 9, which took the peloton over the famed white gravel roads towards Siena for a mini Strade Bianche. He found himself in the overall lead of the race following a tight second place on the day behind a majestic Wout van Aert. The UAE man managed to avoid the punctures, mechanicals and crashes that befell many, including his own team leaders, to find himself in an unimaginable position.
As the race progressed over the Monte Grappa and Mortirolo towards the grand finale in Rome, Del Toro continued to pull on the pink threads every morning. Bear in mind, he wasn’t meant to be the team leader. The squad went into the Grand Tour with dual leadership between Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates but Ayuso would abandon after a bad bee sting near his eye and Yates was never really in contention.
Hopes of a Giro title being retained by the team following Pogačar’s dominance the season prior would rest on the shoulders of a 21-year-old who had been completely untested in this situation. Yet instead of shirking in the spotlight, he thrived, heading into the end of the final week with a 43 second advantage over Carapaz and Simon Yates. That was until Stage 20.
The penultimate stage of the Giro – the final day in which riders could realistically challenge for the maglia rosa before the processional day around Rome, forced Yates to face an old foe. The site where he lost the 2018 Giro in some fashion, haemorrhaging time on the Colle delle Finestre and losing a whopping 40 minutes by the time he crossed the line at Monte Jafferau.
The cream of the crop came to the fore to battle it out. Del Toro, Carapaz and Yates primed to lay it all on the line for glory. Except it didn’t really work out that way. For Yates, it was nothing short of a dream scenario. After three snuffed out attacks, his fourth stuck and he was set free to slay his demons and shock the cycling world, meeting up with satellite rider and teammate Van Aert to ride into the history books. He had played the race to perfection, waiting in the shadows and being as quiet as possible to strike at the exactly the right time. Behind, Carapaz and Del Toro only looked at one another. Carapaz was waiting for Del Toro to do the work, and Del Toro didn’t want to drag the former winner to the line to get beaten. With that, it was all over.
With that enormous crescendo, the Giro was by far the most entertaining Grand Tour of the lot.
