- All 184 riders expected at the start have arrived in Lille, where the fans got to cheer them during the teams presentation in the majestic setting of the Grand Place. 12 of the 23 teams introduce a new jersey in the 112th edition of the Tour.
- At a time of speculation and predictions, most of the attention is focused on Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, who have won the last five editions and occupied the top two places since 2021. The Slovenian currently leads 3-2 in this duel, which is set to continue.
- While the Danish leader of Visma-Lease a Bike will speak on Friday, the world champion shared his sensations in a press conference, as did the 2024 white jersey winner Remco Evenepoel and their elder Primoz Roglic.
- Meanwhile, Denmark's Mattias Skjelmose has thrown his hat into the ring for the 50th anniversary polka dot jersey.
TADEJ POGACAR : “I HOPE I CAN LIVE UP TO THE EXPECTATION”
The defending champion is also the clear favourite to retain the overall victory. After his surprise triumph in 2020, an indisputable confirmation of his superiority in 2021 and a masterful performance to return to the top last year, Tadej Pogacar is embracing his status with his usual ease: “It’s been a great season so far, perfect, and going to the Tour as one of the favourites is an honour. I hope I can live up to the expectation. As always, the first week of the Tour is one of the most intense. You can easily lose the Tour before the first rest day. But I also see it as an opportunity, with a lot of hard finishes, tricky finales, not so many pure sprint stages, a TT also… And then we have quite a lot of mountain top finishes. The last week in the Alps is the hardest, I think.”
Naturally, the Slovenian knows the strengths and weaknesses of his rivals inside out and identifies Jonas Vingegaard as the most dangerous of them all: “The last five years were quite intense between me and Jonas, and the others as well. It’s a great rivalry and this year is more or less the same. It will be interesting to see if we can do it again or not but you never know with new guys coming in. I’m looking forward to racing against Jonas again, I think he’s in a great shape, and I’m also looking forward to racing against the rest on all terrain. I think it will be a great month to watch on TV.”
REMCO EVENEPOEL : “I’LL TRY TO MAKE IT HARDER FOR TADEJ AND JONAS”
Third in the overall standings and winner of the white jersey on his first attempt last year, Remco Evenepoel will line up at the start in Lille with the desire to continue his progress, while acknowledging the difficulty of the task ahead: “My goal is to win the three Grand Tours in my career. I have one in the pocket, so two to go. I was third last year, so I think the ability is there, but Tadej and Jonas are of course the top favourites this year again. I'll try to make it harder for them but it's very difficult to say where I am exactly compared to them.”
“The stages in the Pyrenees and the Alps are very hard, with lots of elevation, and it comes towards the end of the week, so we’ll feel the fatigue. I think Col de la Loze, with its 27 kilometres of ascent, will be very painful. But the other stages are not necessarily easier, it depends on how we race”, Evenepoel added after discussing his quest to become the best climber possible after he was dominated by Pogacar, Vingegaard and Lipowitz in the Critérium du Dauphiné: “The work for the mountains is not something that happens over ten days, it’s a matter of months, and even years, especially for someone who is not physiologically a climber. I work about this all the time and I’m happy with the sensations I had at the Belgian nationals. I hope it will allow me to finish up there in the standings.”
PRIMOZ ROGLIC : “I DREAM TO BE THE BEST”
For his seventh participation in the Tour de France, Primoz Roglic continues his quest to complete his collection of victories with the most prestigious race in cycling, having already triumphed four times in the Vuelta (2019-20-21-24) and once in the Giro (2023). The first requirement will be to break the curse that has plagued him for several years, having abandoned the Tour in his last three participations due to crashes. Since 2019, the Slovenian has competed in 13 Grand Tours - each time, he either finished on the final podium (8 times) or abandoned (5 times).
“To compete in the Tour, you need first to survive and I’m a good example of that in the last years”, Roglic acknowledged. “What matters is how you get on with it. I’m 36 now, I have some unfinished business with the Tour, but I can also say winning it or not won’t change who I am. It’s a privilege to still be there with younger riders and to fight with them. I don’t really need to point them out. The way Tadej [Pogacar] is riding, and also Jonas [Vingegaard] and Remco [Evenepoel]…”
“Being who I am, you dream, you fight, you work to be the best”, Roglic added, also backing his young teammate Florian Lipowitz, who recently finished 3rd of the Critérium du Dauphiné: “He is really strong and he showed how much of a high level he has. So why not do the same here in the Tour de France?”
HUNTING THE POLKA DOTS: “IT WILL BE DIFFICULT IF JONAS OR TADEJ WINS AT COL DE LA LOZE”
On the 50th anniversary of the polka-dot jersey, the battle for the King of the Mountains standings will be fought over 67 categorised ascents: 9 HC summits, 4 cat.-1, 12 cat.-2, 16 cat.-3 and 26 cat.-4, granting a maximum of 358 points from Lille Métropole to the Champs-Élysées, via Col de la Loze (the highest summit of this Tour, 2,304m) and Côte de la Butte Montmartre (the final ascent of the race, 128m). As usual, long range attackers will try to get the better of the GC contenders, in line with Richard Carapaz’s triumph last year.
The Ecuadorian climber was set to defend his polka-dot jersey before he fell sick just before the start in Lille. The peloton of the Tour 2025 will thus feature four former winners: Tadej Pogacar (2020, 2021), Jonas Vingegaard (2022), Julian Alaphilippe (2018) and Warren Barguil (2017).
Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) hopes to follow their tracks: “I’m not gonna fight for a top-15 in GC, I’d rather go for a stage win and potentially the polka-dot jersey. I had the opportunity to help Giulio Ciccone win it in 2023 and it was something special to see him on the podium in Paris. I thought he looked cool in that jersey, let’s see if it’s also the case with me! There aren’t too many points in the first week [34 in the first 9 stages] and then there are lots of big mountain stages. Points are doubled at Col de la Loze [40 points at the finish of stage 18] and I can imagine Jonas or Tadej winning that stage… It would make things difficult but we’ll have to see.”
FLYING NEW COLOURS IN LILLE
The team presentation on Thursday evening at the Grand Place in Lille was the first opportunity for fans to see the new kits that riders will wear in this Tour. More than half of the participating teams are sporting new jerseys in this edition. In some cases, the change is radical.
Visma - Lease a Bike emphasizes black with a design called “The Swarm”, which features the names of fans who bought it in the pre-sale, while Israel-Premier Tech will combine blue with electric pink in a nod to its bicycle brand, Factor. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s new kit is white, blue and red, referencing the French football team in a Tour that takes place entirely on French soil.
Some redesigns are more subtle. TotalEnergies’ new jersey pays tribute to their general manager Jean-René Bernaudeau by picking up the chequered pattern of the legendary Peugeot team with which he finished sixth in the 1981 edition. UAE Team Emirates draws inspiration from the “anahata”, or heart chakra. Other changes allow the inclusion of new brands, such as Ineos Grenadiers and its new sponsor TotalEnergies, as well as Groupama-FDJ, Tudor, EF Education-Easy Post, Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale, Lidl-Trek and Lotto.
