Tour de France 2025

The 2025 Tour de France will start in Lille on July 5 and conclude in Paris on July 27. For the first time since the pandemic-delayed edition of 2020, the race will take place entirely within France.

The Tour begins with three stages in Northern France and the first major rendezvous of the race will come with a time trial in Caen on stage 5, while the opening week will also feature an explosive finale at Mûr-de-Bretagne.

The first mountaintop finish comes in the Massif Central on Bastille Day with a new finale at Le Mont Dore. The second week sees three crucial days in the Pyrenees, with summit finishes at Hautacam and Superbagnères sandwiching a mountain time trial to Peyragudes.

The third week is a brute, and the tone is set with a summit finish at Mont Ventoux on stage 16. The Tour returns to the Col de la Loze on stage 18 ahead of another mountaintop finish at La Plagne a day later.

The final weekend sees a rugged trek through the Vosges to Pontarlier ahead of a new twist to the grand finale in Paris. After the success of the Paris 2024 Olympics road race, the climb to Montmartre has been added to the stage.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) returns to the Tour de France as the overwhelming favourite, having already won Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège this year. The world champion is chasing his fourth overall victory after triumphs in 2020, 2021 and 2024.

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is the obvious challenger, and the Dane is vying for his third Tour de France victory after carrying yellow to Paris in 2022 and 2023. He placed second in 2024 after recovering from a life-threatening crash.

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) will also line up with designs on overall victory, while Ben O’Connor (Jayco-Alula), Enric Mas (Movistar), João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates), Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) should also figure in the front group in the mountains.

The battle for the green jersey of points classification winner will include 2024 champion Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), with Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-Alula), Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) also likely to challenge for sprint wins.

The Tour de France is one of cycling’s three Grand Tours, alongside May’s Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España in August and September. The three-week race is cycling’s ultimate test of endurance and versatility, and the Tour de France is cycling’s most prestigious event. There are 23 teams in the 2025 Tour de France, each with eight riders. The 18 WorldTour teams are joined in the peloton by five wildcard teams.

The overall winner of the Tour de France is the rider who covers the 21 stages and 3320km total distance in the quickest cumulative time. The overall leader each day wears the yellow jersey, or maillot jaune.

The best young rider – open to competitors under the age of 26 – wears the white jersey, or maillot blanc. 

The points classification sees riders earn points based on their position in each stage and in intermediate sprints, with the leader wearing the green jersey, or maillot vert.

The king of the mountains classification sees rider earn points based on their positions on selected climbs, with the leader wearing the polka-dot jersey, or maillot à pois.

The team classification is based on the general classification times of the first three riders of each team on each stage, with the leading team denoted by wearing yellow race numbers and helmets.

On each road stage, there is a prize awarded to the most combative or courageous rider – the Prix de la Combativité – and the rider wears a red race number the following day. At the end of the Tour, the rider judged to be the most aggressive of the entire race is awarded the Super Combativity prize.