'It's proving quite tricky to bring all the pieces of the puzzle together at once' – No Tour de France again for Tao Geoghegan Hart following illness

Tao Geoghegan Hart's return to the Tour de France has been postponed once again after the British racer fell ill at the recent Tour de Suisse.

30-year-old Geoghegan Hart hasn't raced the Tour since he made his debut back in 2021. He was part of Lidl-Trek's long-term plan for July, though the team hadn't yet confirmed their Tour longlist.

His 2025 season hasn't fully gone to plan, however, with sickness in Switzerland following on from a stomach illness which ruled him out of March's Volta a Catalunya mid-race. He returned for April's Tour of the Alps and finished third at the Tour of Slovenia earlier this month, but illness struck again last week.

"Really enjoyed the first stages of the Tour of Switzerland, back in a WorldTour peloton for the first time properly this year," Geoghegan Hart wrote in a post to Instagram.

"Unfortunately, the last five days I got sick with a mild chest infection and felt progressively more lousy toward the end of the week, even just to finish the race."

Geoghegan Hart, now in his second season at Lidl-Trek following a seven-year spell at Ineos Grenadiers, continued to say that it's "proving quite tricky to put all the pieces of the puzzle together" in 2025.

"At times the body feels like it's coming back to some semblance of my prior level, and I'm definitely seeing glimpses of that, " he wrote. "But it's proving quite tricky to bring all the pieces of the puzzle together at once."

Geoghegan Hart's third place at the Tour of Slovenia was his best GC result since winning the Tour of the Alps in 2023, a spring which also saw him podium at the Vuelta a Andalucía and Tirreno-Adriatico. However, his illness in Switzerland left him finishing the eight-day race in 25th place.

Geoghegan Hart's attention will now turn to August and the end of the racing season, with a possible Vuelta a España start his only chance at racing a Grand Tour this year. His future racing schedule has yet to be confirmed, however.

"Looking forward to a week of rest now and then some consistent training before more racing in August. 1111 make a wish and, as ever, thanks to Lidl-Trek for the support," he wrote.

He'll have to wait until 2026 to possibly make his Tour de France debut for the US team, though, with bad luck once again ruling him out of contention for the biggest race of the season.

Since racing to a 60th place on his "far from ideal" Tour debut in 2021, which saw him caught in the 'Allez Opi-Omi' crash on the opening day, he missed the Tour in 2022 following an illness-hit spring, before missing half a year of racing after fracturing his hip in a crash at the 2023 Giro d'Italia.

Last year, a crash in the Critérium du Dauphiné saw him suffer a fractured rib, with that injury, alongside a bout of COVID-19, ruling him out of the Tour.