“Fortuna audaces iuvat”. And there, we feel compelled to be courageous, ingenious and daring. Like heroes in a classic novel setting sail, we take the bull by the horns with the sometimes reckless hope that the wind will blow in our favour. In the case of stage 6 of the Tour de France 2025, the sails will be driven by the words of Tadej Pogacar. "Our priority will be to maintain the advantage we have over our rivals in the general classification, and not necessarily the yellow jersey," he said. "I don't know what might happen tomorrow, for example. It could be a day for a breakaway, and someone could get in there and take the yellow jersey," he concluded. And with that flurry of words, imaginations were set free.
The 201.5 kilometres of the second longest stage of this Grande Boucle accumulate no less than 3,350 metres of elevation gain. As a reference, the stage ending at Hautacam, which includes the climb to Col du Soulor, will have 3,850 metres. The ups and downs will be constant on an insidious journey from the coast to the interior of Normandy. There will be no fewer than six categorised climbs, plus a final steep climb.
The opportunities for a breakaway are countless, as are the candidates to make it. Stage racers like Steff Cras (TotalEnergies) and Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X) could slip away in search of the yellow jersey. Classic riders of the highest calibre, such as Marc Hirschi (Tudor) or Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), will find their favourite terrain. And we cannot rule out the possibility that, with Pogacar calling the shots, the second strings of the most powerful teams will try to sneak into the breakaway... including one of his teammates, like Marc Soler?
The opposite scenario, with a compact peloton reaching the final kilometres as happened in Boulogne-sur-Mer or Rouen, would require one or two teams determined to force a weak breakaway and control the race with an iron fist. With such an uncertain forecast, after five days of competition and with fifteen to go, this seems unlikely. The most logical outcome is that, as so often in life, fortune will favour the brave.
