2025 Tour de France - Stage 1

I'm not sure if this will be a permanent new format, but tonight I'll summarise my thoughts on today in bullet points... I have a lot to write about.

● If anyone had any questions about why Alpecin brought this trident, which ultimately led to Jasper Philipsen's victory today under challenging conditions, they could see exactly why. Van der Poel, Groves and Rickaert managed this split and lead-out perfectly in a group of 40, especially in the last 1200 metres, and Jasper Philipsen confidently won the day. It was the first yellow jersey of his career, an opportunity that comes around every 3-4 years, despite all the justified and unjustified attacks against him in recent years, or perhaps because of them, but it was totally deserved.

● Can Uno-X be called the kings of crosswinds? After all, on the windiest day of the year, back in early February at the AlUla Tour, they owed their GC podium finish to this skill, and now they owe their Tour de France stage podium finish to Soren Waerenskjold. The leadout they launched in the last two kilometres looked good, and although they couldn't see it through, they still signalled that they wanted to take another serious slice of this fondant cake. Abrahamsen deserves special mention – 17 days after his collarbone fracture, he was able to join the first group and made a significant contribution to the team. It was a fantastic recovery on his part.

● First day on the Tour, first team classification win with two top 10 finishes – Tudor didn't have a bad day today either. If we add to this the fact that Storer managed to gain a breakaway disadvantage on the first day, then this day could be almost perfect, but I am a little concerned about Alaphilippe's condition; hopefully, he just let today go thoroughly after his hard work.

● And then the negatives: For many teams, today is pretty much a write-off, and in many cases, I can't find an explanation for this, because it was completely clear which part to pay attention to at the end, and yet at least three teams can go to the hotel after today thinking it was a tragic day. We need to start with Red Bull Bora - they built their team to do well in the first week, and they really didn't do well in terms of positioning - you could already sense from Lipowitz's unfortunate puncture that it wasn't going to be a good day for them, but the end was really bad. The same goes for Lidl-Trek, they build a whole team around Milan, and except for Stuyven, they can't make it into the first group - and Soudal-Quick Step needs some sprint-type paradigm shift. They need someone else alongside Merlier who can pace. It was pretty surreal to see Valentin Paret-Peintre trying to bring the two groups together on flat terrain.

● Oh, and: poor Ganna, poor Bissegger, poor O'Connor, poor Marijn van den Berg. Sad that so many of them crashed – I'm afraid they won't be the last casualties of the first few days.

#TDF2025