Key events
That’s it from me, our Tour de France coverage resumes on Tuesday with the famous climb of Mont Ventoux.
Flash stage 15 report
Jeremy Whittle’s race report from Carcassonne should be on the site very shortly and you will be able to find it in this live blog. In the meantime, here is a quick take from Reuters:
Julian Alaphilippe endured a chaotic, emotional stage 15 of the Tour de France on Sunday, crashing early, soldiering on with a dislocated shoulder, and then mistakenly celebrating what he thought was a stage win – before discovering he had been beaten by two riders.
The Soudal-Quick-Step rider hit the deck in the opening kilometres, suffering pain and a shoulder injury that cast doubt over whether he would even finish the day. “He had a crash at the beginning of the race,” said team sports director Raphael Meyer. “He had pain and a dislocated shoulder. He was seen by the doctor and he still has some pain. He’s going to do x-rays.”
But the Frenchman fought on, eventually crossing the line — arms raised in triumph, believing he had pulled off an emotional comeback victory. He hadn’t.
Unbeknownst to Alaphilippe, Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) had already powered away from the breakaway group earlier and claimed a convincing solo win.
Victor Campenaerts had also slipped away and crossed the line nine seconds ahead of Alaphilippe. “He thought he was first on the line — but the radio didn’t work,” Meyer said.For Wellens, the victory marked a brutal show of strength, and another chapter in the dominance of leader Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates, as they continue to exert near-total control over the race.
For Alaphilippe, it was a bitter-sweet finish – a gritty ride, a brave comeback, and a win that wasn’t. It was not the first time such misfortune happened to Alaphilippe.
In 2020, he raised his arms in celebration before the finish at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege Monument classic, only to see Slovenian Primoz Roglic effectively beating him to the line. The Frenchman was then disqualified for deviating from his sprint line.
General classification standings after stage 15
1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 54hrs 20mind 44secs
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) +4mins 13secs
3. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) + 7mins 53secs
4. Oscar Onley (Team Picnic–PostNL) +9mins 18secs
5. Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa–B&B Hotels) +10mins 21secs
6. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) +10mins 34secs
7. Felix Gall (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) +12mins
8. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) +12mins 33secs
9. Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +18mins 26secs
10. Ben Healy (EF Education–EasyPost) +18mins 41secs
Raphael Mayer, CEO of Alaphilippe’s Tudor team, has been explaining that bizarre moment on the finish line to TNT. Mayer says that the crash Alaphilippe was in early in the stage busted the rider’s radio and they had no time to change it. “[Alaphilippe] did a perfect sprint and thought he won. Well, what can we do?
“It’s super nice to be third, if you’d asked us this morning to be third in the stage we are happy and with everything that happened – even without this happening – we would be happy. So, we are third and with Michael Storer getting most combative today we are happy and now let’s hope Julian has no severe injuries.”
Mauro Gianetti, UAE team principal, has been speaking to media after Wellens’ earned another victory for their outfit: “If there is one rider in the Tour de France who deserves a victory it is Tim Wellens. He is so dedicated to the team, dedicated to Tadej, always five centimetres from Tadej, in training camp, in race, in morale, in everything. Today he was in the break without looking to be in it. he was in a position to not work in the first 50km when it was very hard, the energy he saved in the first part of the breakaway he gave in the final. It was clever, like always, attacking just before the long descent. When he was away the others behind started looking at each other. Another fantastic day for the team and especially for Tim.”
Confusion for Tudor and Alaphilippe
Alaphilippe celebrated crossing the line like he’d won, which was little odd. Apparently he was completely unaware that Wellens and Campenaerts had already finished, only learning that he actually finished third in the mixed zone. I bet he feels a bit silly. No interview requests being taken at this time.
The peloton is only just coming under the flamme rouge. The GC leaders won’t be too fussed about the results ahead apart from Ben Healy, who could lose ground to Rodriguez. We will get confirmation on that shortly.
Campenaerts breaks off the front of the chasers and takes second place on the stage, it looks like Alaphilippe got third, just ahead of Van Aert.
Tim Wellens win stage 15!
The UAE rider and Belgian national champion timed his break to perfection and destroyed the field. He high-fives some fans and crosses the line solo. He will have a couple of minutes wait for the next riders to follow him.
3km to go. Wellens looks relaxed as he powers to the line. He’s giving thumbs up to the TV cameras and pumping his fists.
4km to go. Van Aert might well catch the chasing group, he is about 10 seconds behind them as Simmons tries to attack again.
6km to go. The chasers have given up, they’re now trailing by 1min 45secs.
9km to go. Wellens is nearly at the end of this long descent and on the flat into Carcassonne.
13km to go. This will be another stage win for UAE, their fifth of the Tour. Pogacar, of course, has the other four.
16km to go. All cohesion has gone from the chasers, they’re just attacking each other.
19km to go. Wellens is gone and away, he leads by 1min 25secs. The battle is now for second place
24km to go. There is some interest in the peloton in hunting down the chase group. Carlos Rodriguez, the Ineos rider, could move up the GC standings at the expense of EF Education’s Ben Healy.
30km to go. Wellens has truly broken today’s stage, he has 57 seconds on the chasers now and surely a stage win in his grasp. What an attack. He sat in the lead group and did minimal work before pouncing at the key moment, just before the start of the descent.
36km to go. Wellens now has a lead of 29 seconds. The descent makes up most of the run into the line, there will be only 7km to the end of the stage once Wellens gets off the bottom of the hill.
39km to go. Wellens has a 18 second lead now. Barguil, Storer, Campenaerts, Vlasov and Simmons are barreling downhill to catch up.
43km to go. Tim Wellens has gone for a long range attack. He waited for the group of Barguil to catch up and then went off. Quinn Simmons is chasing but the Belgian rider has got a gap and is now on the descent.
46km to go. Rodriguez, Barguil, Vlasov and Lutsenko are the second group on the road and 20 seconds behind the leaders. Their hopes of winning the stage are not completely over, yet.
Tony Hughes has emailed in with an interesting take:
If Jonas wins nothing ever again, or retires or whatnot, I hope even with his stolid demeanor, he can at some point look back and take comfort in the fact that he held off what may be the greatest cyclist of all time for two consecutive years (acknowledging Tadej’s crash/injury in 2023 contributed to this).
Neutrals may wish for a Fignon-LeMond-esque finish each year but the battle between Tadej and Jonas during the 2020s has to me, in every way, been as fascinating. Chess on wheels.
50km to go. The leaders are through the steepest section of the climb and the gradients are now much severe. There is not a lot of harmony amongst them though and if they are reeled in it will be because they haven’t worked together. The keep on attacking each other and that is not the way to grow the time gap.
52km to go. The second group on the road are now more than 35 seconds behind the leaders.
53km to go. Storer wants to attack that group of leaders again. He probably needs to break Simmons, Campeanaerts and Wellens on this climb to win.
55km to go. With Barguil and Vlasov riding over the leading group has grown again, but not for long. Simmons and Storer have gone away off the front on the category two climb. Will this stick? There are two more riders behind Simmons and Storer, Campeanaerts and Wellens.
56km to go. The nine riders at the front are being closed down by the larger group behind. Barguil and Vlasov are now 12 seconds behind.
61km to go. Leknessund is now across and the second group on the road is now only 20 seconds or so back. That is just a couple of riders, Warren Barguil and Aleksandr Vlasov.
62km to go. Leknessund has made ground on the leading group of eight. He is now about 15 seconds behind.
74km to go. The leaders are heading down the Côte de Sorèze and are coming up to the next climb in 15km or so. Andreas Leknessund is 30 seconds behind that group of eight and behind him are 25 riders, then a fair bit further behind (2mins 47secs) is the peloton, which features the yellow jersey. I think it’s now safe to say that winner will come from those 34 riders who have escaped the peloton and most likely the eight up the very front.
83km to go. Rodriguez has made it, so that lead group is now eight men.
84km to go. Ineos rider Carlos Rodriguez is trying to chase down the seven men at the front the race. He has about seconds to make up and that would be a big boost for his team, who missed the original break.
87km to go. The lead group has been whittled down to seven riders as they hit the second category Côte de Sorèze climb. Campenaerts, Lutsenko, Simmons, Wellens, Powless, Storer and Mohoric are now 47 seconds ahead of the remaining number from the original breakaway and a number of others from the main peloton.
92km to go. This is shifting again. Four riders have gone off after the breakaway but are still some 30 seconds behind.
97km to go. Milan seems to have a problem again. He has fallen about a minute behind the peloton and even further back is a 38-rider group featuring the current polka dot jersey leader, Lenny Martinez.
Robin Lynch has emailed in as he still has a few things on his wishlist for the final week:
Looking forward to the final stage in Paris with the Montmartre climb and hoping that Wout can win that one. Would love to see Vingegaard take one of the mountain stages and a bit of spice for the last podium place between Vauquelin, Onley, Lipowitz on stage 19. Feels too greedy to hope for a late hurrah from Alaphilippe, but praying to the cycling gods nonetheless.
103km to go. The frantic racing has calmed a little now. The breakaway has a lead of around 50 seconds and rising, Ineos appear to have given up the chase for the time being. Van Der Poel will fancy his chances if this breakaway is allowed to stay out in front.
108km to go. Van Der Poel has taken the 20 points on offer at the intermediate sprint to close in on Pogacar in second place in the green jersey standings.
110km to go. The intermediate sprint is coming up in a kilometre. The peloton is now back together and 30 seconds behind the lead group.
More thoughts on Pogacar’s game plan from John Westwell via email:
I wasn’t surprised that Pogacar didn’t seem bothered about winning yesterday’s stage, and I’d be even more surprised if he doesn’t just want to sit back and have a ‘steady’ day today. He knows he’s in control of the race now.
He will almost certainly be looking to win on Mont Ventoux on Tuesday, though. Not least because Eddy Merckxx won on the summit in 1970 and Pogacar seems keen to measure himself against Merckxx at every opportunity.
Andrew Benton has emailed in from Hong Kong with what he’s looking out for in the final week:
I’ll be looking for Geraint Thomas to bag a stage win. I’d imagine he’s not planning to, but perhaps an opportunity could present itself, and that would be super. And one for Julian Alaphilippe, too, why not.
In the ‘90s it was Indurain, in the 2000s Armstrong (its not about the bike, he wrote – and clearly it was not) and now, in the mid and late 20s, will we be seeing year after year of Pogacar victories? I don’t think so – he’ll dominate for a few years, but there are always others coming after him and they can be victorious, opportunity and chance can play a big role. But I don’t have a favourite, as long as the suspense continues until the last couple of stages each year.
118km to go. Ineos do not have a rider in the lead group and are working hard on the front of the peloton to bring that back. The gap is holding around 40 seconds.
120km to go. Just as I write that Milan and Pogacar are in the same group, a split appears in the peloton. Milan is on the wrong side of it and the green jersey is now in the third group on the road, around 20 seconds behind the peloton.
125km to go. The intermediate sprint is rapidly approaching, coming up in about 15km. The current green jersey leader is Jonathan Milan, who is 28 points ahead of the Pogacar. Both of them are in the main peloton but Van Der Poel is in the breakaway and could make up some serious ground in that particualr race today.
127km to go. Girmay has given up his pursuit of the breakaway, which now has a lead of 40 seconds over the peloton.
131km to go. The peloton is now back together, with Pogacar, Vingegaard and Florian Lipowitz all together.
134km to go. There are plenty of attacks happening. Biniam Girmay is the latest to go off from Pogacar’s group in pursuit of the 15-rider breakaway and have made up about 12 seconds.
137km to go. A large-ish group featuring Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Clément Russo (Groupama-FDJ), Kaden Groves, Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Matteo Vercher (Total Energies), Alexey Lutsenko (Israel Premier Tech) and Jarrad Drizners (Lotto) are hovering around 30 seconds ahead of Pogacar’s group. The chasers off the back, a group which features Vingegaard, are catching the main bunch. The gap now is around 26 seconds, but the pace is very high.
143km to go. The peloton is about one minute behind Pogacar’s group. A slightly chaotic start to stage 15 which has limited any breakaway threats.
146km to go. The peloton is back together at the front, but there are some gaps further back. UAE Team radio has just been played on the broadcast requesting that Pogacar slow the front of the race as a Vingegaard was caught in the crash incident. It’s not clear whether or not the Dane was involved in the crash itself.
148km to go. We’ve had a couple of crashes in the early running, Julian Alaphilippe had to go the medical car but has resumed. Jordi Meeus and Gianni Moscon are pacing Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) back to the bunch.
150km to go. Neilson Powless of EF Education-EasyPost has gone off the front on his own but he was chased by Tobias Foss, Alexey Lutsenko and Yevgeniy Fedorov. This doesn’t look like it’s going to stick as they have less than 15 seconds on the peloton.
We are underway
Bit of confusion on my part, caused by ITV’s race coverage starting a little later and the baffling CET. Anyway, we’re now off racing.
Lotto have announced that Lennert Van Eetvelt will not start stage 15 and is withdrawing from the Tour de France. Van Eetvelt crashed at the Belgian national championships and was involved in an incident during the second stage of the Tour. According to his team, ‘the physical toll’ has proven too much for him to continue and he will now begin recovery.
As ever, you can get in touch via email. The link is at the top of this page. With the yellow jersey seemingly decided, I’d be interested to hear what you’ll be looking out for during the final week of the Tour.
The peloton will soon be rolling out of Muret and then it’ll be another 10 minutes to KM0 where the racing will get underway.
A quick reminder of the various standings
General classification
1. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 50hrs 40mins 28 secs
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) +4mins 13secs
3. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe )+7mins 53secs
4. Oscar Onley (Team Picnic–PostNL) + 9mins 18secs
5. Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa–B&B Hotels) +10mins 21secs
6. Primoz Roglic (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) +10mins 34secs
7. Felix Gall (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) +12mins
8. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) + 12mins 33secs
9. Ben Healy (EF Education–EasyPost) +18mins 41secs
10. Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +22mins 57secs
Points classification
1. Jonathan Milan (Lidl–Trek) 251
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 223
3. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Deceuninck) 190
4. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty) 169
5. Tim Merlier (Soudal–Quick-Step) 150
6. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) 135
7. Anthony Turgis (Team TotalEnergies) 130
8. Quinn Simmons (Lidl–Trek) 93
9. Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) 90
10. Oscar Onley (Team Picnic–PostNL) 88
Mountain classification
1. Lenny Martinez (Team Bahrain Victorious) 60
2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 52
3. Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) 48
4. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) 39
5. Michael Woods (Israel–Premier Tech) 38
6. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) 24
7. Ben Healy (EF Education–EasyPost) 20
8. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal–Quick-Step) 16
9 Bruno Armirail (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) 15
10. Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) 14
Preamble
It was nice of Tadej Pogacar to finally let some of the other riders to have a go yesterday and he still found a way to twist the knife further into the heart of Jonas Vingegaard’s beleaguered hopes of winning the Tour de France. Even the Dane’s most generous fans would struggle to describe him as a yellow jersey rival now. Pogacar’s advantage is 4mins 13secs and he is essentially racing against himself. The Slovenian has 21 stage wins and there is every chance that he will continue his rapid pursuit of Mark Cavendish’s record. Pogacar made it pretty clear after winning stage 13 on Friday that he is not planning to take any days off.
“I’m not here to make enemies,” he said, “but it’s the Tour, you cannot just back off if there’s the opportunity for a stage win. You never know when it’s your last day on the Tour.
“I will say it honestly. The team pays you to win, and there’s a big team behind me that supports me and that works every single day of their career to come to the Tour, to win the Tour. If there is an opportunity, you go for it. You can’t say no to a stage in the Tour.”
Still, UAE Emirates may look at the empty threat to Pogacar’s general classification lead and decide to play this one safe. There are three categorised climbs and a lumpy to descent into Carcassonne to contend with, so maybe there is a bit of hope for the breakaway? Should that be allowed to play out, such is the nature of professional cycling in this constant-go era that a winner for this stage will likely be a familiar name capable on the slopes from the one-day racing pack. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Wout van Aert (Visma-LAB) are strong contenders, maybe even Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) or someone with that kind of profile.
For the good of the Tour, a non-Pogacar stage win would be good. Domination can quickly become dull and while there is nothing boring about Pogacar’s style of racing, cycling as a foregone conclusion is not much of a sport.
