{"id":104460,"date":"2025-07-30T09:36:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/104460\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T09:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T09:36:15","slug":"the-5-stages-where-the-tour-de-france-was-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/104460\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Stages Where the Tour de France was Won"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was the expected result in the end \u2013 Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> in first and Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> second \u2013 but not in the way that many had hoped. Poga\u010dar seems to have ended the Tour de France<\/a> bored and mentally defeated, a stark contrast to his physical domination of the race.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard ended the Tour in higher spirits, despite not winning a stage or even matching his 2024 climbing level. The third favorite, Remco Evenepoel, left the Tour on stage 14 after already falling out of the GC.<\/p>\n

Florian Lipowitz<\/a> and Oscar Onley<\/a> \u2013 3rd and 4th place in GC, respectively \u2013 were the revelations of this year\u2019s Tour de France. Both riders had shown promising results in the last few seasons, but few would have expected them to battle for the GC podium in Paris. Other storylines included Jasper Philipsen crashing out, Mathieu Van der Poel leaving the Tour through illness, and Biniam Girmay failing to win a stage after being so dominant last year.<\/p>\n

In this article, we are going to zoom in on five stages where the Tour de France was won (and lost).<\/p>\n

#1 \u2013 Stage 5 Time Trial
\n\"RemcoRemco Evenepoel dominated the time trial (Photo: Chris Auld)<\/p>\n

While the opening stages were hectic, they didn\u2019t produce significant GC gaps amongst the favorites. In fact, Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard were only separated by eight seconds before stage 5\u2019s time trial. It was a flat effort in Caen, stretching 33km with just 191m of climbing. But by the end of the stage, the GC gaps had exploded.<\/p>\n

Vingegaard had a horrible time trial, losing one minute and five seconds to Poga\u010dar and 1:21 to the stage winner, Evenepoel. Poga\u010dar had a fantastic TT, beating all of the time trial specialists that had been saving their legs for this very effort. Onley finished 23rd on the stage, 1:04 behind Lipowitz in 6th. Not much was said about this at the time, but the gap between 3rd and 4th place in GC would only be 1:12 in Paris.<\/p>\n

GC Standings After Stage 5:<\/strong>
1st: Tadej Poga\u010dar 17:22:58
2nd: Remco Evenepoel +0:42
3rd: K\u00e9vin Vauquelin +0:59
4th: Jonas Vingegaard +1:13
\u2013
9th: Florian Lipowitz +2:31
11th: Oscar Onley +2:41<\/p>\n

#2 \u2013 Stage 12 on Hautacam
\n\"Poga\u010darPoga\u010dar went on the attack and took serious time (Photo: Chris Auld)<\/p>\n

It was nearly a week until there were significant GC gaps again, and this time, it was the infamous Hautacam doing the damage. Everyone expected this stage to be hard, and for the time gaps to be significant. But no one expected the gap between Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard to be quite this big.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, it\u2019s clear that Vingegaard didn\u2019t have great legs on Hautacam. In fact, this was a below-average climbing performance for the Dane. You could see it happening in real-time during stage 12. With all due respect, Vingegaard only finished 13 seconds ahead of Lipowitz and 50 seconds ahead of Tobias Halland Johannessen and Onley. The climbing level that Vingegaard has shown in his career is far better than what was displayed on Hautacam.<\/p>\n

This single ascent accounted for more than half of Poga\u010dar\u2019s winning gap in Paris. By the end of the Tour, Poga\u010dar was 4:24 ahead of Vingegaard, including 18 bonus seconds. Vingegaard lost 2:10 on Hautacam alone. Take a close look at these power numbers from Hautacam, and keep them in mind when we analyze the performances on Peyragudes and Mont Ventoux.<\/p>\n

\"JohannessenJohannessen \u2013 Hautacam<\/p>\n

Johannessen \u2013 Hautacam<\/strong><\/p>\n