Tour de France stage 5 preview - Remco Evenepoel's race of truth

After paying tribute to Jacques Anquetil on Tuesday’s rugged road to Rouen, it’s only appropriate that the Tour de France stays in Maître Jacques’ native Normandy for the stage 5 time trial around Caen.

Anquetil’s dominance of the Tour in the early 1960s essentially created the modern template for success in the race. Dominating the time trials and then managing the mountains was a playbook that would find echoes in Bernard Hinault, Greg LeMond, Miguel Induráin and Team Sky in the decades since.

Remco Evenepoel’s strength against the watch and his ability to limit the damage against the purest climbers makes him an obvious successor to that lineage. This time trial is fundamental to his Tour challenge, even if there is also a nagging sense that the business of winning this race has changed considerably in the 2020s.

Follow stage 5 via our live report 
Also have a look at the last 10 time trials where Evenepoel, Vingegaard and Pogačar went head-to-head.

Had Evenepoel operated in the Jean-Marie Leblanc era – long, long time trials and a meagre diet of mountains – he would have been an obvious candidate to win multiple Tours. Had he been born a decade sooner, one imagines Team Sky would have moved heaven and earth to build their operation around him.

In the era of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, however, winning time trials and managing the remainder of the race no longer suffices given their penchant for all-out attack, in the mountains and elsewhere. Their running battle on the punchy opening stages illustrates the point vividly – Miguel Induráin versus Tony Rominger, this ain’t.

And yet, that changed landscape doesn’t alter the significance of this time trial for Evenepoel. If anything, it makes it even more important to the Belgian, especially after the seconds he frittered away in the echelons on stage 1.

With Filippo Ganna (Ineos) already out of the race, Evenepoel is the overwhelming favourite for stage victory, but the true metric of the success of his afternoon will be the time he claws back on Pogačar and Vingegaard in the overall standings over the 33km test.

Before the Tour began, Evenepoel would have viewed this time trial as an opportunity to move into the yellow jersey. His deficit on Pogačar and Vingegaard before the start – 58 and 50 seconds, respectively – surely puts taking the maillot jaune at the very outer limit of his capabilities, even if he was bullish about the idea on Tuesday evening.

Evenepoel’s victory over that pair in the 17.4km time trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné is only a partial guide. The route, with its short climb, was “completely different” in Evenepoel’s view, and, of course, all three riders will expect to have improved in the month since.

Still, even allowing for those caveats, Evenepoel will need to exceed his Dauphiné performance to take yellow here. The 1.2s/km gained on Vingegaard there would translate to ‘only’ a 39-second swing in Caen. Reproducing the striking 2.79s/km gained on Pogačar, on the other hand, would see Evenepoel put 1:32 into the Slovenian on stage 5.

Indeed, Pogačar’s subdued outing in that Dauphiné time trial is the other key narrative thread ahead of the Caen time trial. In 2024, a retooled Pogačar appeared to have remedied the flaws that had become apparent in his time trialling over the previous two seasons. He won the hillier time trial at both the Giro d’Italia and Tour, and he limited his losses on Ganna (Giro) and Evenepoel (Tour) to the minimum in the flatter one.

That made his travails in the Dauphiné all the more surprising. It was, by a distance, his most clear show of vulnerability over the past year and a half, even more so than his mistimed attack at Amstel Gold Race in April

Was that simply a one-off? Or was it emblematic of a deeper malaise against the watch? Or was it even, as Tom Danielson suggested, all simply a big bluff? Pogacar’s obvious annoyance at the finish – his scrutinising of Matteo Jorgenson’s bike and his refusal to speak to reporters – suggests that his defeat was a pressing concern rather a playful ploy. But Pogačar being Pogačar, he will expect to be closer to Evenepoel – and, above all, to Vingegaard – over the 33km run to Caen.

Pogačar avoided taking the yellow jersey when he won stage 4 in Rouen, incidentally, but that doesn't mean he has spared himself wearing an unfamiliar skinsuit in Caen. He moved back into the lead in the mountains classification on Tuesday evening, meaning he will be wearing an ASO-supplied polka dot skinsuit rather than his tailored team attire. A minor detail, perhaps, but they all count. 

Elsewhere, the time trial is also a key moment in the race of Pogačar’s compatriot, Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). The Slovenian has affected a certain apathy towards the business of winning the Tour in his interviews – surely a protective reflex after so much heartbreak over the years – but a strong showing in a favoured discipline would put a different sheen on a race that has been subdued thus far. Roglič would surely have preferred a hill along the way – he’s endured a couple of heavy beatings from Evenepoel on flatter courses – but he won’t lack for motivation.

Speaking ahead of the Dauphiné, Evenepoel downplayed the significance of that test as a dress rehearsal for stage 5 of the Tour de France. “The TT in the Dauphiné won’t say a lot about the time trial in Tour,” he said. “It’s an effort of 20-21 minutes maximum, so it’s a time trial that can’t be compared to the Caen time trial at the Tour, which is 33km of total flat, without any real altitude gain.”

If anything, mind, the pan flat Tour time trial could be even better suited to the unique gifts of Evenepoel, who marries raw power with the remarkably low CdA (Coefficient of Aerodynamic Drag) that sees him revel in the nickname of the ‘Aero Bullet.’

The 33km time trial is flat, fast and relatively devoid of technical difficulties as it loops out of Caen towards Thaon before turning back into the city. The roads, by and large, are wide and smooth, and the total elevation gain is less than 200m. A day for the purest of time triallists. Anquetil would have made hay.

“Most of the course will be on wide, completely flat roads that demand a great deal of power,” was race director Christian Prudhomme’s verdict. “The strongest rouleurs should be right in their element.”

There are three time checks on the route, at Cambes-en-Plaine (8.2km), Thaon (16.4km) and Gruchy (24.8km).

It’s also something of a novelty for the modern Tour. There were early time trials in 2022 (stage 1) and 2021 (stage 5), of course, but this is the first time trial of more than 30km in length in the opening two weeks of the Tour since 2013 – and that test came on stage 11.

An increasingly rare opportunity for a rider like Evenepoel, in other words. He impressed on early time trials in both his victorious 2022 Vuelta a España and his ill-starred 2023 Giro – if he is to get closer to Pogačar and Vingegaard on the 2025 Tour, he’ll need to do the same here.

The forecast is for mostly clear skies to last all day, the temperature anywhere between 22 and 24º, with low humidity and no chance of rain. More importantly, winds will be very light, a maximum of 3-5kph, though teams will need to anticipate a change in direction from a northerly breeze in the early afternoon to a southerly later in the day. 

That would have riders facing a (very, very mild) cross-headwind in the closing kilometres, but the conditions are unlikely to be a factor on Wednesday, not least because the GC contenders are all already tucked near the top of the standings and among the final starters.

The full rundown of start times is available here.