In this Tour de France wherever Tadej Pogacar goes Jonas Vingegaard follows. The rivals were locked together again at the top of the Mur de Bretagne, in the Cotes d’Armor, with the defending champion winning stage seven of the 2025 Tour just ahead of the Dane and regaining yellow.
Pogacar is usually the quickest of the pair in uphill sprints but Vingegaard has, so far, always been on his shoulder, with world champion Remco Evenepoel still close behind.
Pogacar now leads the Tour again after Mathieu van der Poel faded on the steep climb to the finish, with Evenepoel 54 seconds behind, and French breakthrough rider, Kevin Vauquelin, holding on to third place in the general classification.
The 24-year-old from Normandy has quickly captured the host nation’s affections. In the past that has all too often been a poisoned chalice, but so far, Vauquelin has taken it in his stride.
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Even Pogacar has welcomed younger rivals, such as Vauquelin and Oscar Onley, who was third on Mur de Bretagne.
“There’s a lot of professionalism already at a young age,” Pogacar said. “To see young guys coming through, is good, especially Kevin in the last two days.
“He has great support and I think Oscar Onley showed already how bright he is, with a punchy kick. He’s riding super well.”
Pogacar, however, did not have a flawless afternoon, with his key climbing support, Joao Almeida, crashing at speed just under six kilometres from the finish as the peloton descended towards the second and final climb of the Mur.
The crash also brought down Irish duo Ben Healy and Eddie Dunbar.
Healy, who claimed his first Tour de France stage victory on Thursday, finished Friday’s stage one minute 25 seconds off Pogacar, while Dunbar, who was more severely impacted by the incident, crossed the line seven minutes 39 seconds off the new leader.
Healy, racing for EF Education-EasyPost now sits 11th in the general classification, with Team Jayco AlUla’s Dunbar in 33rd.
“It’s beautiful to be in yellow and win the stage,” Pogacar said, dedicating his win to his Portuguese team-mate. “It was a luxury to have Joao so close on GC. I really hope it’s nothing broken and he can continue.”
He has others he can lean on, such as the tall, powerful Nils Pollitt, who Pogacar calls Giraffe, but he will need Almeida alongside when the race reaches the first long climbs next Monday on the stage to Puy de Sancy.
On another hot afternoon it took 70 kilometres for the break to establish itself after a volatile opening to the stage. Geraint Thomas was joined in the mid-stage break by EF Education-EasyPost’s Alex Baudin, team-mate to Healy, as the American team sought another stage win.
Thomas’s escape ended 17 kilometres from the finish when he was caught on the first ascent of the Mur. But after a disappointing start from Ineos Grenadiers, the Welshman had at least got “stuck in”, to use his own phrase.
On the fast approach to the finishing circuit, centred on the dead straight two kilometre ramp of the Mur, Pogacar’s UAE Emirates team and Vingegaard’s Visma Lease-a-bike team yet again jostled for supremacy. As the mercury rises, so is the tension between the two squads.
“The last two days, it was some strange racing from Visma,” Pogacar said. “Let’s see their approach in the next days. The weekend will be easier and then stage 10 will be a proper hard day of suffering with hot temperatures and lots of climbs all day.”
Speaking outside the Tour’s mobile hospital, Almeida said: “I have a bit of a cracked rib, but to be honest my finger is worse. That could be a problem. I should be okay to start in the morning but we’ll take it day by day.”
Stage eight is definitely one for the sprinters, with only a gentle fourth category climb on the 171 kilometre route from Saint-Meen-Le-Grand to Laval. – Guardian
