At the end of a first step animated by various border, Jasper Philipsen pulled out of the game to win in the streets of Lille in front of Biniam Girmay and Søren Wærennskjold. Remco Evenepoel is already wasting time on Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard.
Jasper Philipsen was able to respond. While it was promised to longtime sprinters, the 1st stage of the Tour de France 2025 proposed a brutal scenario due to a side wind opening the door to the borders. In this little game, the sprinter of the Alpecin-Deceuninck team knew how to be trapped to get the yellow jersey in force.
After the protocol ceremony, the 184 runners set off for a buckle of 184.9 kilometers around Lille. Barely the flag lowered by Christian Prudhomme, Mattéo Vercher rose to his pedals to launch the first attack on this 112nd big loop. The runner of the Totalenergies team was accompanied by the French champion of the time trial Bruno Armirail and Jonas Rutsch. A trio that quickly saw Benjamin Thomas and Mathis Le Berre do the junction.
This quintet immediately had the green light from a peloton that “made curtain” before many runners take a break for a natural need. The result was a gap reaching two minutes but the sprinters teams, Alpecin-Deceuninck in the lead with Silvan Dillier, intervened to limit this gap.
The Côte de Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, after 41 kilometers of racing, saw the good understanding at the top of the race is disintegrated with an attack by Bruno Armirail. The Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale team was countered by Benjamin Thomas. The Olympic Omnium champion last year in Paris went to seek the first point in the pea jersey ranking.
Ganna on the ground, Pogacar accelerated
Movements that have done the platoon, which has halve its delay at the cost of a growing nervousness. She made two victims in the space of a handful of kilometers. Both went to the ground, Filippo Ganna and Stefan Bissegger threw the sponge before they even completed this 1st stage.
Another runner who was not on his plate this Saturday is Lenny Martinez. The Frenchman of the Bahrain Victorious team has been distant several times and shown a face revealing physical difficulties. He cut the finish line in 182nd and last position more than nine minutes from the winner.
At the top of the race, a clear area with a sustained side wind prompted the launch of a border with the UAE Team Emirates-XRG who got down to it with Tadej Pogacar who did not hesitate to give his person. Accelerations that sounded the death knell for a breakaway that had lost Matteo Vercher after 78 kilometers at the front. A junction that has come timely for candidates for the green jersey, that is to say in view of the intermediate sprint of Motte-aux-Bois with Jonathan Milan who preceded Bryan Coquard and Biniam Girmay.
In the process, Mattéo Vercher went on attack with Benjamin Thomas who took his wheel. A duo that has passed the Mount Cassel before an improbable incident. When throwing his bike on the line to go to the lead and take the polka dot jersey, the Cofidis team runner lost control of his mount.
Philipsen too powerful, Evenepoel and Roglic distant
He took his escaper in his fall on the cobblestones usually borrowed by the 4 days of Dunkirk. This allowed the peloton to make the junction without forcing. In the descent, it was the teammates of Remco Evenepoel who raised the look before trying a new border, without success.
Last difficulty of the day, located 45 kilometers from the goal, Mont Noir saw Jonas Vingegaard take a point in the polka dot jersey. The teammates of the former double winner of the event hosted the final by launching a new acceleration at the start of the last fifteen kilometers of the stage. This caused a break, the main victims of which were misplaced sprinters such as Jonathan Milan, Tim Merlier or Bryan Coquard but also … João Almeida, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel. Three ambitious for the general classification which could never return and dropped 39 seconds on the line.
At the front, the teams of sprinters passed between the drops were set up, in particular Alpecin-Deceuninck and Uno-X Mobility. In particular launched by Mathieu Van der Poel, Jasper Philipsen did not tremble on Boulevard Vauban to raise his arms by winner in front of Biniam Girmay and Søren Wærennskjold. The Belgian sprinter takes the opportunity to seize the first yellow jersey of this 2025 Tour de France.
He thus imitates Alexander Kristoff, who was the last to have carried out it in Nice in 2020. A first step which has already moved the positions in the general classification, with some losers which already impose a certain pressure.
