Tour de France 2025 Stage 1 recap – Jasper Philipsen in yellow after chaotic finale, Evenepoel and Roglic lose time in opening day drama

It’s a long neutral zone today as the 184 riders soft-pedal their way through Lille ahead of the official start and kilometre zero at 12:40 UK time. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious) are taking it easy and shooting the breeze on the back. It's probably the most relaxed time they will have for the next three weeks...

Here’s that interview with Pogacar from earlier:

"To be honest I had a pretty good night’s sleep – I slept for nine and a half hours, which you don’t do often with kids. I’m ready for this race and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a race that has won my heart – it’s the most special one in cycling and I hope I can fight for the victory this year. The plan was to see how it was at the Dauphine [Pogacar beat Vingegaard by +58"] and then fine tune. We saw that I lost a bit of time on the longer climbs and so we’ve worked on that. We have a strong team – it’s like a classics team – so if there’s an opportunity [in the wind today] then we will try to take it."

Asked at the team presentation whether he was in the form of his life, Pogacar sayd: "I hope so. It’s the sixth time on my start line of the Tour and I’ll be fighting for the victory again in the biggest race in the world. It’s the most important race of every cyclist’s career. We can expect the unexpected from Visma-Lease a Bike and the fight starts today. There’s a super good atmosphere in the team and I’m looking forward to spending another three weeks with the guys.

The opening stage of the race is a 184km ride from Lille to Dunkirk. There may be a few lumps along the way of the Tour curtain-raiser, but a flat run-in and the desire of too many teams should ensure that it is a sprinter – for the first time since 2020 – who dons the first yellow jersey after a fast finish in Lille. But three Cat. 4 climbs means we will have a rider in polka dots, while there’s a chance of some crosswind chaos on some of the long, wide exposed roads of northern France.

As always on the opening day, the stress levels will be high, so we can expect a lot of tension in the pack which may manifest itself in touches of wheels and crashes. Fingers crossed everyone comes through unscathed – but remember the Giro d’Italia opener, where Mikel Landa crashed out… The Spaniard still isn’t back, which means Remco Evenepoel – third last year – starts without one of his key mountain lieutenants.

Tadej Pogacar had already won his first Tour in 2020 by the time Jonas Vingegaard made his debut one year later, coming second behind the Slovenian. And then it was the Dane who won back-to-back editions before Pogacar ran riot last year to make it 2-2 in their head-to-head, and 3-2 in favour of the UAE Team Emirates rider in terms of total Tour wins. Can Vingegaard and his Visma-Lease a Bike team level up this year, or will the world champion continue his stellar form and snare a fourth win in Paris in just over three weeks’ time?

Just three seconds separate the two riders in the past four Tours – in Vingegaard’s favour – although if you factor in bonus seconds it’s a 1’25" advantage for Pogacar. Either way, the margins are fine.

The wait is finally over and the 112th edition of the Tour de France gets under way today. In less than an hour, the 184-strong peloton will roll out of Lille and get the 2025 race going on a largely flat day that seems destined for the sprinters. But so often we have witnessed the unexpected on the opening day of the biggest bike race on Earth, so stay tuned for all the action as I, Felix Lowe, talk you through all the key moments of today’s opening stage in northern France.