Evenepoel and Roglic suffer early setback in Tour de France echelons
Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič were the most notable riders to miss the split as Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar stole an early march on their rivals in the crosswinds on stage 1 of the Tour de France.
If the 2025 Tour de France didn’t have the look of a two-horse race before it started, then it certainly does now. Remco Evenepoel and Primo Roglič were caught out when the race split into echelons with 17km remaining on stage 1 in Lille, and they would lose 39 seconds to Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar by day’s end.
It was a double disappointment for Evenepoel’s Soudal-QuickStep team as European champion Tim Merlier also failed to make the front group, thus missing the chance to sprint for the first yellow jersey of the race, which went to Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Evenepoel briefly went off the road and onto a grass verge during the frenetic chase, though the Belgian managed to stay upright and deftly insert himself back into the chasing group.
There was little to be done about the deficit to the leading group of 38 riders, however. Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike forced the initial split in the crosswinds, and Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck team proceeded to hammer home the advantage, mindful that fast men like Merlier and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) had missed the bus.
It was also a trying afternoon for Roglič and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team, given that Florian Lipowitz – the revelation of the Critérium du Dauphiné – also failed to make the front group. The German came home in the same time as Roglic and Evenepoel.
Other GC men to lose ground on Saturday were João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), Carlos Rodríguez, Geraint Thomas (Ineos) and Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL), who all came in 39 seconds down.
Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-Alula) lost more than five minutes, while Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) was last on the stage, more than nine minutes back.
Dunbar’s teammate O’Connor was a faller in the finale but the crash happened within the last 5km, meaning that he was awarded the same time as Pogačar, Vingegaard et al. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Enric Mas (Movistar) also finished in the front group.
