Tour de France roundtable: Best riders and most memorable moments of the race so far

Eleven stages in the legs, 10 left to ride. The 2025 Tour de France has nudged over the halfway mark, yet the most decisive moments of an already enthralling race are yet to come.
The race begins three days the Pyrenees today (Thursday, July 17), then heads to Mont Ventoux and the Alps in the third week.
So far we’ve seen a largely-imperious Tadej Pogačar, an aggressive Visma-Lease A Bike squad, a super-strong Ben Healy, a hyper-committed Mathieu van der Poel and myriad other storylines. All in all it’s been an enthralling edition of the Tour.
But who and what has stood out to The Athletic’s writers? Here’s our review of the race so far.
(Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images)
Standout performer of the race so far
Jacob Whitehead: I will take Healy. Yes, it’s unimaginative, he’s the yellow jersey, yada, yada, yada. But this has not been a Tour for the outsider. Pogačar, the best rider in the world, has won two stages. Each of the three fastest sprinters in the world — Jasper Philipsen, Tim Merlier, and Jonathan Milan — have won stages. Remco Evenepoel, the best time-triallist in the world, won the time-trial. Van der Poel, the best Classics rider in the world, won a Classics-style stage, and has come close on countless others.
So maybe it’s fair to call Healy the best breakaway rider in the world, and note that not only has he won a breakaway — but that a breakaway is a far more nebulous and fragile landscape to navigate. This has been his breakout race, from a promising talent who surprisingly grabbed a Giro stage, to a rider that delivered on his potential across multiple stages. He may lose the maillot jaune on the Hautacam on Thursday but that does not matter — he is still the rider of the first half of the race.
Chris Waugh: Van der Poel. He is just box-office. That mammoth stage nine breakaway alongside Jonas Rickaert, his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate, when Van der Poel was agonisingly caught inside the final kilometer, was one of the most fascinating attacks in recent Tour history. The peloton was baffled as to how to respond behind and the eventual sprint was significantly reduced because so many teams did not know what to do. A green jersey bid is looking like an outside prospect now but, having worn the yellow jersey twice so far, for a cumulative four days, and also having already won stage two, the 30-year-old just pips it for me from a large group of riders who deserve recognition so far.

Van der Poel has enjoyed his best Tour de France since 2021. (Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
Tim Spiers: Pogačar, Healy and the incessantly brilliant Van der Poel are obvious picks so I’ll go with Oscar Onley. The young Scot’s performances as almost the only rider who could follow Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard right to the conclusion of stages four and seven, both uphill finishes, were exhilarating. Onley showed a lot of promise in the Tour de Suisse last month and has carried that into the Tour. It may not last much longer now the race heads into the high mountains, but if that’s the case then a drop down the general classification may offer opportunities to elevate his burgeoning reputation with a stage win.
Duncan Alexander: I’m going to pick Matteo Jorgenson. Visma have shown they are probably the team of the race so far, with each of their riders going all-in to try and unsettle and fatigue UAE whenever they can. But for this to work properly, they need a rider up there alongside Vingegaard, and that man is Jorgenson, currently fifth on GC. As we saw on stage 10, Pogačar will react when the American attacks, and Jorgenson is showing the sort of form that suggests he can keep doing so as the race reaches the high mountains. He’s also been the perfect loyal teammate for Vingegaard too, and was notably spiky after stage 11, reminding Pogačar that yes, Visma are keen to dethrone him, but that they will do so in a sporting manner.

Jorgenson has been a superb teammate for Vingegaard so far. (Bo Amstrup/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images)
Moment of the race so far
Chris: The final climb up the Rampe Saint-Hilaire in Rouen on stage four. Just 800m in length, but painfully steep with an average gradient of 10.3 per cent and highs of almost 18 per cent. Pogačar’s team had set him up to attack on the steepest inclines — and attack he did, in typically brutal fashion. While almost all of his GC rivals were distanced, Vingegaard found the resolve to respond and, initially, he stuck to Pogačar’s wheel. Yet the Slovenian kicked again and, having dropped back a few meters, Vingegaard looked behind him in concern. The Dane appeared to have blown up but, somehow, he gradually clawed back the metres and managed to get back on to Pogačar’s wheel. This is the newer, more muscular Vingegaard and it suggested that maybe, just maybe, he can actually match Pogačar even when the defending champion produces one of his race-defining attacks.

Pogačar tries to drop Vingegaard in Rouen; he did not succeed. (Bernard Papon / AFP via Getty Images)
Tim: The rolling stage two, the longest stage this year at 209km, didn’t promise thrills but, like almost every day so far, it delivered. Van der Poel produced a Herculean effort to both lead out the sprint 500m out and then somehow hold off Pogačar all the way to the line. It was an incredible display of desire, power and, well, muscles. “He’s too fast for me,” Pogačar conceded afterwards. The Slovenian got his revenge two days later when the roles were reversed, but Van der Poel is one of very few riders who have a realistic chance of beating Pogačar in the right circumstances.
Jacob: I’ll go for a different Van der Poel moment. Stage nine, seemingly a flat sprint into Chateauroux, was animated by a surprise attack from the Dutchman, riding in tandem with Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jonas Rickaert. Initially a light-hearted bid to give Rickaert the combativity prize, providing the domestique with likely the only Tour podium of his career, it turned into an opportunistic bid for glory. He was caught, agonisingly, 750m before the line. But it is these races within races, the moments that go unrecorded in the ledger but make viewers feel and squirm so much — which make Grand Tours.

Van der Poel and Rickaert on their big adventure. (Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images)
Duncan: I’m with Jacob on this one. Look, it’s not the most pleasant image but the revelation that Rickaert vomited five times while attempting to keep up with his superstar teammate Van der Poel during their ridiculous and brilliant route-long breakaway on stage nine is a wonderful detail. Plenty of cyclists have spent several Sundays going a little too deep, but few get to do it alongside one of the sport’s greats, with their increasingly ragged efforts broadcast around the globe. Rickaert had suggested going in the break as a joke to Van der Poel. He probably won’t try that again.
One thing you’d have changed about the Tour’s first half
Chris: The white jersey competition. This is more a wider gripe, rather than one specifically aimed at this year’s race, but the fact that Evenepoel still qualifies and has worn the jersey for half of the race (currently on behalf of Healy) so far at the age of 25 just baffles me. Increasingly, GC contenders are emerging at a younger age and a cut-off point of 23 seems like a fairer idea. Evenepoel finished third last year — and claimed the young-rider classification outright — and, while that was his debut Tour, he is not a novice rider. He won the Vuelta a Espana in 2022 and, behind Pogačar and Vingegaard, is probably the third-best Grand Tour rider in the world. This is a very niche thing to complain about, I accept, but the likes of Onley (22), Romain Gregoire (22) and Joseph Blackmore (22) could actually be really fighting for this prize, rather than expecting Evenepoel to claim it when that is not really why the Belgian is at the race.
Tim: Vingegaard blowing up on the time trial on stage five and losing more than a minute to Pogačar, which gave the GC an ominous look a little too early in the race. Pogačar’s wearing yellow in Paris feels inevitable but it would have been nice to keep the pretence of this being a genuine battle up a little longer. Instead, Vingegaard contrived to produce one of the worst time trials of his career. Now he has a lot to do in the high mountains.

Vingegaard’s one bad day so far came in stage five. (Jasper Jacobs / BELGA MAG / AFP via Getty Images)
Jacob: That Kevin Vauquelin did not win a stage. Cut him open and he reads panache, spurred onwards by little more than gels, hope, and an undying love for the nation of France. The race has been going on for almost two weeks, and if you tune in at any random moment, it is likely that Vauquelin is attacking. I have developed quite the infatuation with the 24-year-old (can you tell?) who rose to third and wore the white jersey after the best time-trial of his life in Caen. The day after, he rode past a giant hot air balloon with his face on it, in his hometown. How good is that? Expect the Arkea rider to fall back on GC over the coming weeks, but that may be no bad thing — readying his legs for another stage bid.
Duncan: Yes, I know you can’t keep piling danger into the first week of a Tour de France but the fact that stage three went so close to several of the infamous cobbled sections from Paris-Roubaix but not actually on them is a crime against cycling. At one point, the route went through the village of Mons-en-Pévèle for goodness’ sake. A five-star sector that isn’t utilised gets a one-star score from me.
The stage you’re most looking forward to in the remainder of the race
Chris: A boring answer, but the ‘queen stage’ in the Alps on Thursday, July 24. At 171.5km long and with more than 5,500m of elevation, stage 18 looks savage for the riders. But, for the viewers, it looks extremely exciting. Starting in Vif and ending in Courchevel, the race takes in three iconic climbs: the Col du Glandon, the Col de la Madeleine and the Col de la Loze. Regardless of the standings on GC heading into the fourth-last stage, time gaps are guaranteed and there could be multiple races taking place at once, with a breakaway victory eminently possible. However, should Pogačar or Vingegaard wish to claim a victory at the top of a famous summit, there may well be action from start to finish.
Tim: Tuesday, stage 16, Mont Ventoux. The legendary, gruelling, mystical mountain with its long history of tragedy and glory returns with (weather permitting) a summit finish for the first time since 2013. They’ve only been there twice since, going up and down the bald mountain twice in 2021 (Wout van Aert won after attacking on the second ascent) and in 2016 when the finish was pushed lower down the mountain by high winds, Thomas De Gendt took the stage and Chris Froome ran up part of the mountain after a crash. Who might take to their feet this year to get the job done by any means? My money’s on Quinn Simmons.

Chris Froome was the last rider to win a summit finish on Ventoux, in 2013. (Jeff Pachoud / AFP via Getty Images)
Duncan: Stage 14 to Superbagnères. It’s a climb that hasn’t been used since 1989 but which can now be accessed again by the Tour’s sizeable caravan after some timely bridge repairs. The Tour is race that exalts in its long history and any return to an iconic location — as with the Puy de Dôme in 2023 — stirs the heart. And just look at the history that Superbagnères has. Jacques Anquetil won there in 1961, Jef Planckaert in 1962, Eddy Merckx in 1971, Bernard Hinault in both 1979 and 1986 and Laurent Fignon in 1989. Quite frankly, who wouldn’t want to be added to that roll of honor?
Jacob: This may make me sound impatient — or like a football manager saying they’re only thinking about their next game — but it’s the Hautacam on stage 12. The first high mountain test of the favourites, these opening ascents are some of the most exhilarating of all Tours. Who truly has the legs, and who has merely managed to surf the bunch? Cycling is exposing and unrelenting. So is the Hautacam. The next 24 hours will dictate so much of this race.
Have you changed your mind about who will win this year’s Tour?
Jacob: Visma are attacking innovatively, and using what is now — after Joao Almeida’s withdrawal — their superior strength in depth. There have been signs of Jorgenson and Vingegaard providing the tag-team attacks which did for Pogačar in 2022, while there is a question over how the Slovenian will react on the Hautacam, one day after his crash on stage 11. Ultimately, do I still think Pogačar’s level is higher than Vingegaard? Yes. But I’m less certain he will win the Tour than I was at the start, despite his 1:17 lead over the Dane — who now has the firepower behind him to at least try to become the race’s protagonist.
Chris: No. I still think Pogačar will win and there has been so much evidence throughout the opening 10 stages to support that prediction. Pogačar looked extremely strong in the time trial, has won two stages and distanced almost all of his rivals in the process, while he has responded to just about every challenge Visma or anyone else has thrown at him.
But my iron conviction that Pogačar will cross the finish line in Paris in yellow has actually been knocked slightly. With Almeida already out of the race and Pavel Sivakov struggling with illness, UAE look significantly weaker as a team than Visma. With five mountain stages still to come, that may prove decisive, particularly considering Vingegaard tends to perform better on the higher, longer climbs. Even so, I still think Pogačar will have enough to make it back-to-back Tour victories, and four in all.

(Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty Images)
Tim: Pogačar has been asked some weird questions by Vingegaard and Visma and answered them all with increasingly haughty disdain. Vingegaard will definitely get opportunities in the mountains – Pogačar will almost certainly be isolated at key moments now that he’s lost his chief lieutenant Almeida – but there has been nothing yet to suggest that the Slovenian will crack, or that Vingegaard has the legs to pull away from him.
Duncan: Not completely, but often Tours can shift slowly, then all at once. In successive stages, Pogačar has been isolated (stage 10) and then crashed (stage 11), and the second half of this race is one of the hardest routes the race has served up for a long time. For entertainment’s sake, let’s hope we get a proper ding-dong battle in the mountains.
(Top photo: Loic Venance/AFP)