The ramp up to rest day – Key moments from the yellow jersey battle of the Tour de France in pictures

The first rest day of the 2025 Tour de France is here, with 10 stages already in the rearview mirror. With a Bastille Day extension, the opening 'week' of the Tour, which usually covers nine stages, has seen almost half the race route already covered.

It has been an action-packed start and, since our last photo-gallery recapping the best of the action over the first five days, the subsequent five have delivered their share of thrills and spills.

The yellow jersey has changed hands not once but twice, there has been more tension in the battle between Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, we've had more sprint battles and we've had breakaway heroics in various forms.

The Tour finally breathes for a moment on Tuesday July 15, giving us the chance to look back at the key moments from the past five days and, thanks to our photographers, bask in their visual glory.

HEAD AND LEGS

Stage 6 tipped the scales a shade over 200 kilometres long, but the winner Ben Healy spent less than half of it in the day's successful breakaway. For starters, it took the best part of 70km for that breakaway to form, and later on, Healy waved it goodbye with over 40km remaining. There was a contrast between the fast, furious, enthralling nature of the overture, and the almost subdued finale, with Healy's superiority making the result known well in advance of the line.

There was also a contrast between the sledgehammer he used to make the break and the sniper rifle he produced to leave it behind. Healy, as we've come to expect, made no secret of his desire to get up the road early on, attacking relentlessly as the breakaway struggled to form. But what he lacked in subtlety early on, he more than made up for with his surprise attack 42km from the line, which caught his companions napping and gave him a winning hand before they even worked out how to respond.

Not that it was all in the timing – crossing the line nearly three minutes clear was a good sign, Healy was simply the strongest in the group anyway. A stage won with the legs and the head.

MIND GAMES

The opening few days had already seen the start of the mind games between the two big favourites, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, and that was taken up a notch on stage 6. Early on, Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike seemed hell-bent on extending the chaotic fight for the breakaway, not necessarily needing to get a rider in there but happy to chuck fuel on a fire that UAE Team Emirates-XRG would have to keep under control.

Later on, they set a furious pace on the run-in despite the stage being long since decided, an apparent ploy to keep Pogačar in the yellow jersey, which comes with daily post-stage commitments such as podium, media and anti-doping. "Visma tried to do, I don't know what…" said Pogačar afterwards – a sign they'd achieved their main ambition: rattle the defending champion.

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER

Geraint Thomas was a slightly incongruous sight in the stage 7 breakaway. This is, after all, a former winner of the Tour de France on a team that won seven yellow jerseys in the eight years between 2012 and 2019, and thus haven't usually resorted to first-week stage-hunting on unlikely breakaway days. But both Thomas and Ineos have needed a shot in the arm.

The British team have slipped from their perch in the Pogačar-Vingegaard era and they've had a slow start this time out, despite the return of the boss Dave Brailsford to the team bus. Thomas, riding his final season, has been notably short of his best in the early days, and on stage 7 he was swiftly dropped from the doomed break on the first ascent of the Mur-de-Bretagne.

"Lambs to the slaughter," was how the Welshman described the move, which was tightly policed by the peloton. "It's tough on flatter roads because it's a lot more punchy, but I'm 39, I'm lacking a bit of punch in the old legs," he added. Perhaps the break was a way to kick-start the Tour for himself and his team.

JUST A BLIP

There were some small flashes of action the previous day, but stage 7 was the first test for Jonas Vingegaard since his hugely damaging experience in the time trial two days previously. Having looked so sharp in the opening four days, was the TT a mere blip? Or was it the sign of a deeper malaise, that might become more evident on the double ascent of the short but steep Mur-de-Bretagne?

The answer came pretty emphatically as the latter. Vingegaard was once again beaten by Pogačar in the final dash for the line but once again he was arguably just as impressive. After all, we expect vicious finishes from Pogačar on punchy terrain. But in this Tour, the Dane has shown a radically improved punch of his own. He was unable to come around but was well on terms as the pair literally gapped the rest, and Vingegaard even spoke of making “a few mistakes” – so he had more in the legs. Stage 5 was obviously a blip, there's life in this Tour yet.

A COMING OF AGE

Stage 8 was a quiet affair for the most part but it ended with a pulsating sprint and a young rider assuming his status as one of the sport's top stars. Jonathan Milan now has 23 wins at the age of 24, 18 of them coming in a meteoric past 18 months.

Last year he won three stages and the points jersey at the Giro d'Italia, and in his first Tour de France, he has already made that step up onto the biggest stage. He has also repaid his team's trust in him, justifying Lidl-Trek's decision to switch Mads Pedersen – their biggest star – onto the Giro d'Italia to hand Milan his shot at the Tour. There aren't many sprint stages left in this Tour, and Tim Merlier will make it anything but easy, but Milan has the green jersey on his shoulders and carrying it to Paris would make his debut Tour a resounding success.

A BODY BLOW

Stage 9 was the most damaging day of the Tour so far for Tadej Pogačar. The yellow jersey sailed calmly through a routine stage, but he finished it without his top teammate, João Almeida.

The damage had in fact been done two days earlier, when Almeida crashed on the run-in on stage 7. A broken rib was the diagnosis, and while his team hoped he could hang around to play a role later in the race, that only proved sustainable for just over a day. Almeida has been quiet so far this Tour – Tim Wellens has been Pogačar’s outstanding domestique for the demands of the opening days – but the Portuguese rider, who has had a stunning season with bags of success of his own, was set to be Pogačar’s last man in the mountains this week and in the final stages. It might just have been a turning point in the entire race.

A HEROIC DEFEAT

Sometimes there’s a stage winner and a people’s winner. On stage 9, Tim Merlier crossed the line first but Mathieu van der Poel was in many ways the bigger story. The Classics star – three times a winner of Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders – attacked from kilometre zero in the sole company of his teammate Jonas Rickaert. Two-up team breaks are always remarkable, especially when they go this far.

Having gone it alone in the final few kilometres, Van der Poel was only swallowed up by the sprint trains inside the final 800 metres – so close but yet so far. Underdog tales are part of cycling’s fabric, and they’re even more gripping when they’re so kamikaze and feature such a decorated rider. In that way, there was heroism in defeat. Tim Merlier’s name is on the stage, but it will be remembered for Van der Poel.

MERLIER'S 100% RECORD

The stage will be remembered for Van der Poel but Merlier nevertheless made a resounding statement in Chateauroux, dubbed ‘Cavendish City’ as the scene of three of the Tour’s best-ever sprinter’s record 35 stage wins.

As he did on stage 3, Merlier came from behind to draw up alongside the bobbing-headed Milan and pip him on the line. It was another close one, but Merlier just about has the edge. In fact, he has contested two sprints at this Tour and has won both. On the opening day, he was caught out in the crosswinds, while on stage 8 he was held back by a puncture. When he does sprint, he’s the fastest in this Tour.

VISMA BUZZ AROUND POGACAR

Another day, another attempt from Visma-Lease a Bike to throw Pogačar off his stride. Stage 10 wasn’t an obvious GC occasion but the heavy day in the Massif Central led Vingegaard’s team to believe they could spring a surprise in the medium mountains.

They succeeded in showing their collective climbing superiority, especially given João Almeida went home the previous afternoon, but they failed to land a glove on Pogačar himself. Despite repeated attacks from Sepp Kuss and even Matteo Jorgenson, Pogačar responded calmly and almost effortlessly every time, before choosing attack as the best form of defence on the final climb.

"They were a bit annoying with all the attacks,” Pogačar said, “so I decided to make a better attack.” Controlled anger will win Pogačar the Tour, but Visma will be hoping their repeated antagonism causes him to boil over. The dynamic is perfectly poised for the Pyrenees this week.

A TEAM EFFORT

The Tour de France has a new leader as it pauses for its first rest day. Ben Healy, who already showed his staggering strength with his stage 6 win, slipped into the yellow jersey on stage 10 after another successful breakaway outing through the Massif Central. Healy became only the fourth Irishman to don the famous yellow jersey, and his Tour is already an unmitigated success after his all-trying but ultimately fruitless debut 12 months ago.

But despite the presence of one man on the podium, this was more of a team tale, with EF Education-EasyPost pulling off a mightily impressive collective effort to grab the jersey. The American team got half their team into the break, with Neilson Powless doing the early work, Harry Sweeny earning the MVP tag for his tireless work in the tense middle phase, and Alex Baudin pushing it into the finale. Healy still had plenty to do, riding much of the finale on the front with riders glued to his wheel, the team call being to sacrifice the stage win in pursuit of yellow. It paid off, landing the team only their third ever maillot jaune. The champagne will have tasted sweet at the EF dinner table.