Mathieu van der Poel won stage two of the 2025 Tour de France into Boulogne-sur-Mer for Alpecin-Deceuninck, claiming the race lead from his team-mate Jasper Philipsen after a quick succession of short climbs inside the final kilometres exploded the peloton on the approach to the Channel port.
The Dutchman thwarted Tadej Pogacar’s attempt to take the 100th win of his career, outsprinting the defending Tour champion on the steady final climb of the Boulevard Auguste Mariette.
“The final was actually harder than I thought,” said Van der Poel. “I was really motivated. It’s four years since I won my first stage on the Tour, so it was about time I won a second one.”
It was a much-improved day for the two Irish riders. Eddie Dunbar finished the stage 48th to climb to 84th in the General Classification, while Ben Healy was close behind in 52nd to jump to 42nd in the GC.
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Philipsen, who had started the stage in the yellow jersey after winning stage one to Lille on Saturday, was distanced in the closing kilometres and Van der Poel took the race lead from the Belgian sprinter.
“People said I was a favourite, but if you see which riders were in front, on the climbs, I did a really good job today to be there,” said Van der Poel. “The climbs were harder than I expected and [ridden at] a hard pace. It was a nervous day again.”
Pogacar’s main rival, Jonas Vingegaard of Visma Lease-a-bike, followed the Slovenian across the finish line, with the Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel distanced on Saturday’s stage, showing greater vigilance to also finish in the front group.
Primoz Roglic, only a year ago characterised as one of the Tour’s “big four”, finished in the lead group after ceding ground in Lille, but has done little so far to dispel the impression that he has relinquished any lingering hopes of contending for the overall title.
The Slovenian is the winner of the Vuelta a España four times and also the Giro d’Italia in 2023, but told the media as the race began that he “didn’t really care” and just wanted to “make it to Paris for a glass of champagne”. He has been anonymous so far.
The 35-year-old was, with his Bora Hansghrohe team-mate Florian Lipowitz, among those who missed Saturday’s decisive split in the front group on the fast approach to Lille. “The guys were asleep,” Roglic’s sports director Enrico Gasparotto said of their costly error on the opening stage. “We talked about that stretch, the wind and the related dangers, but they were surprised.
“We are all aware of the opportunity we wasted: Roglic and Lipowitz lost the chance to gain time on Remco. We learned an important lesson.”
Worse befell the hapless French rider Benjamin Thomas, who crashed on Saturday’s stage while fighting his compatriot Matteo Vercher for a single point in the mountains classification on Mont Cassel, and woke on Sunday morning to the news that his bike, along with 10 others from the Cofidis team, worth about €140,000, had been stolen from their vehicles overnight.
Ineos Grenadiers are also already on the back foot, having lost the time-trialling powerhouse Filippo Ganna to a concussion on stage one, while their team leader Carlos Rodríguez and the 2018 Tour winner Geraint Thomas both missed the decisive break in Saturday’s dramatic finale in Lille.
Rodríguez and Thomas lost a further 31 seconds to the front group on the run-in to Boulogne-sur-Mer, and are now one minute 16 seconds behind Pogacar after the opening weekend.
Monday is another day but there is yet another tricky stage to come, through the Nord and towards the Channel, this time to Dunkirk, in which the cobbles of Mont Cassel and the crosswinds off the sea will again play their part. – Guardian
