2025 Tour de France team selection storylines to watch, from Geraint Thomas to Remco Evenepoel's supporting cast

The Welshman is in his final season as a professional and the Tour is the centrepiece of his farewell to the peloton. Thomas’ final tune-up for the main event came at the Tour de Suisse, but his participation was cut short by a crash on stage 3.

Although Thomas looked in considerable distress and although he came home more than 15 minutes down, he offered an upbeat assessment of his injury at the finish, deeming it to be little more than a dead leg. He was a non-starter the following day, however, and although Ineos Grenadiers deemed that to be a precautionary measure, it heightens interest in their formal team announcement.

Although Carlos Rodríguez is the squad’s expected GC leader, the Spaniard was relatively subdued at the Critérium du Dauphiné. Even at 39, Thomas’s presence in Ineos’ Tour squad has rarely felt more essential.

Visma | Lease a Bike have made a habit of announcing their Tour squad publicly at the beginning of the season, but the line-up announced in winter doesn’t always make it to July. The most famous example was in 2021, when Tom Dumoulin’s sabbatical unexpectedly opened the way for a promising youngster called Jonas Vingegaard to make his Tour debut.

This time around, Christophe Laporte’s longstanding illness has forced him out of Visma’s Tour selection, and, although it hasn’t been officially announced yet, it seems certain that Edoardo Affini will take his place after the Italian was called up to the team’s pre-Tour training camp in Tignes.

There isn’t much suspense around Visma’s formal announcement then – certainly not like the drama over Vingegaard’s participation last year – but the selection brings a question of its own. With Affini, Simon Yates and Wout van Aert, Visma will have three riders doubling up at the Giro and the Tour – is that too many? Tom Dumoulin has expressed his concerns about the strategy.

Soudal-QuickStep have been trying to build a climbing squad around Evenepoel’s Grand Tour ambitions, to the detriment of their longstanding pre-eminence on the cobbles, but circumstances mean the Belgian looks likely to be short of support in the mountains in July.

Twelve months ago, Mikel Landa finished fifth at the Tour after helping Evenepoel to third overall, but the Basque has been ruled out by his heavy crash on the opening day of the Giro d’Italia, while it remains to be seen if Louis Vervaeke will be fit to race after breaking his collarbone at the Critérium du Dauphiné.

With new arrival Valentin Paret-Peintre struggling to live up to his billing, a huge weight of responsibility looks set to fall on the shoulders of Ilan Van Wilder. With Tim Merlier also lining up as Soudal-QuickStep’s sprint option, it will be fascinating to see the final balance of the Tour selection.

Over at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, meanwhile, only one rider is down for double duty, with Adam Yates slated to ride for Tadej Pogacar at the Tour after dedicating himself to Isaac del Toro at the Giro last month.

Yates, third overall at the 2023 Tour, is a certainty for the final eight, and indeed, the rest of Pogacar’s climbing cadre looks clear, with João Almeida, Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler and Tim Wellens all set to ride in July.

Nils Politt is locked in for his ability on the flatter days, and new signing Jhonathan Narvaéz is most likely to complete the team. Domen Novak and Florian Vermeersch remain on standby, but Vermeersch told reporters at the Baloise Belgium Tour that he is resigned to missing out on a ride in July.

Ben O’Connor is Jayco-Alula’s GC leader at the Tour, with debutant Eddie Dunbar serving as a very deluxe supporting rider in the mountains. The squad will also include sprinter Dylan Groenewegen, who will have Luka Mezgec as his lead-out man, but Michael Matthews is absent due to a pulmonary embolism.

Other near certainties include Christopher Juul-Jensen and Mauro Schmid, but Domestique understands that Luke Plapp has come into serious consideration for the final berth in the Tour team.

Plapp chased stage wins rather than GC at the Giro d’Italia, winning in Castelraimondo, before abandoning due to the effects of a virus in the final week. The Australian’s initial return to racing was scheduled to come at the Tour of Austria, but he might yet find himself making an unexpected Tour debut.