Tour de France stage 16: Frenchman Valentin Paret-Peintre conquers Mont Ventoux while Tadej Pogačar takes more seconds over Jonas Vingegaard in GC battle

Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal-QuickStep) added his name to the pantheon of greats to have conquered the summit of Mont Ventoux at the Tour de France, winning an all-out breakaway battle to the line on stage 16 to take the home nation's first victory of the 2025 race.

Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) narrowly lost out to the Frenchman, losing the breathless sprint up the final corner and kick to the line on the 'Giant of Provence', with Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) finishing third from the break.

A crazy stage, full of action from flag to flag, saw one of cycling's most famous climbs decided by a matter of metres, with an almost 40-rider breakaway group needing a sprint to separate them after four hours, with the second race unfolding not far down the climb.

Just 43 seconds behind, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) crossed the line in the yellow jersey ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), after withstanding all of the Dane's attempts to attack away from him on the 15km brute of a climb. Four violent surges were made, but Pogačar had an answer for all of them.

He extended his lead by two seconds on a stage that more than lived up to the billing, with the fight for the GC podium behind them completely exploding on the mythical slopes which have played host to many an iconic Tour de France duel over the years.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe had another solid day for their GC ambitions, with Florian Lipowitz finishing just behind Primož Roglič. The latter moved up to fifth, with Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) getting dropped, and the German consolidated his spot on the podium by finishing 36 seconds ahead of Oscar Onley.

Past the finish, Paret-Peintre walked back to his teammate Ilan Van Wilder, who did a magic job to come back in the final kilometre from a dropped chasing group, giving his French teammate a final lead out.

"It's extraordinary but it wasn't the plan because I really thought that Pogačar wanted to win the stage and that he was going to try to lock down the race," said Paret-Peintre.

"I didn't really believe it. I said to myself that if there was a big group, why not be in it? You never know. I understand that it's possible when there's a big group with two guys from UAE. I said to myself that they were going to try to play with the breakaway, we'll be able to take a step back and try to play for the victory.

"I felt really good. I had two teammates with me, and I told them that I had my chance of winning. A victory on the Tour is extraordinary, but on Mont Ventoux it's even better.

"Ben Healy was really very strong when he attacked but I said to myself: 'It's a victory at Ventoux, you can't give up.' Even in the last 100 metres to overtake him, I really struggled, but I had to do it. Incredible, I can hardly believe it!"

With Soudal-QuickStep losing Remco Evenepoel just days ago, this was the ultimate bounce back for the Belgian squad, capturing one of the hardest-fought breakaway days in recent Tour memory.

It's also the first French win at the summit of Ventoux for 23 years, with Paret-Peintre adding his name to an iconic list alongside Richard Virenque, Jean-François Bernard, Bernard Thévenet and Raymond Poulidor.

How it unfolded

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One of the fastest Tours de France ever continued on stage 16, with a brutal opening phase of racing heading east of Montpellier unfolding, as the fight for the breakaway raged with an iconic finish awaiting.

Mont Ventoux was the destination, the 'Giant of Provence', with 140 kilometres separating the peloton from its fabled slopes. On its 10th appearance as a summit finish location at the Tour, a rider was going to write his name into the history books, but there was a lot of racing still to do before they got there.

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) kicked things off as the flag was dropped, with many others just as interested in forming a move. The first successful separation was found by a trio of Xandro Meurrise (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and the Tudor duo of Marco Haller and Marc Hirschi.

They grew a 1:45-second lead, but more attacks were still to come. For the first 70km, however, UAE walked back on their words of not wanting to control all day, and Nils Politt aggressively marshalled several would-be breakaways.

The big German couldn't control things forever, though, and as the gap to the trio in front dropped to below 10 seconds and the stage entered its final 100 kilometres, finally, a larger group found their way off the front.

More than 30 riders strong, all of the big teams were represented: Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Tiesj Benoot, Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike), Valentin Paret-Peintre, Pascal Eenkhoorn, Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Santiago Buitrago, Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers), Louis Barré (Intermarché-Wanty), Mick van Dijke (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek), Clément Russo (Groupama-FDJ), Meurisse, Julian Alaphilippe, Haller, Hirschi, Matteo Trentin (Tudor), Ewen Costiou, Raúl García Pierna (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Enric Mas, Will Barta, Gregor Mühlberger (Movistar), Alex Aranburu (Cofidis), Clément Champoussin, Simone Velasco (XDS Astana), Mathieu Burgaudeau (Total Energies), Pavel Bittner (Picnic PostNL), Michael Woods, Krists Neilands (Israel Premier Tech), Jarrad Drizners, Brent Van Moer (Lotto), Jonas Abrahamsen and Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility).

The group grew with a couple more Alpecin-Deceuninck riders bridging across, with an average speed already approaching 50 kph, but the next big flashpoint came with 65km to go, when Tudor decided to split things in the front, and create a more suitable lead bunch to chase the victory from.

Seven ended up in the lead: Trentin, Alaphilippe, Mas, Velasco, Abrahamsen, Arensman and Wright, but the latter joined the large chase group after a puncture, where his teammate Buitrago was.

Behind, UAE had allowed the break to finally build a large lead, more than six minutes as they passed Bedoin and approached the traditional climb to the mythical Mont Ventoux.

Two races in one up Mont Ventoux

The chasing group of 30 were still in play, 1:34 down on the six in front, but the leaders started to fracture on the final 17km, with the climb proper still not started. On the uphill roads, Abrahamsen quickly struggled, Trentin finished his turn, and only four remained: Alaphilippe, Velasco, Mas and Arensman.

Huge crowds met the break as they started the ascent, with the next chapter on Ventoux's slopes about to be written, adding to Tom Simpson's tragic passing in 1967, Chris Froome's uphill run in 2016, and many iconic battles over the years.

A small peloton hit the lower slopes at a rapid pace, with 6:10 to make up on those in front, with Visma leading through Van Aert for Vingegaard.

The attacks had started coming from the chasing break from Paret-Peintre, but in the lead, Velasco dropped, and Mas set off away from Alaphilippe and Arensman, trying to salvage a stunning stage win from what had so far been a disappointing Tour.

While race radio revealed that Matteo Jorgenson had already dropped, Visma continued to press on as Sepp Kuss took over from Van Aert with Simon Yates and Vingegaard waiting in his wheel.

Up front, Mas continued to impress, building a 30-second lead over his two closest chasers and a 1:30 advantage to the quartet of Woods, Paret-Peintre, Healy and Buitrago.

The group of GC riders was very thin, with only Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL), Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers), Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Tobias Halland Johannessen and the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe duo of Primož Roglič and Florian Lipowitz joining the UAE and Visma trains for the final 8km of climbing.

Vingegaard finally decided it was time to go early, launching a monster move before the GC group reached Chalet Renard and the exposed roads. With 7km remaining, the group of favourites was blown to pieces.

Pogačar followed in the wheel as they reached Benoot from the earlier break, giving Vingegaard another pull and putting Visma's grand plan into action. Vingegaard's second big surge was matched again by Pogačar as they passed remnants of the day's breakaway and reduced the gap to Mas in front down to just 3:31.

Mas passed the 5km to go barrier still in the lead, but a rampant Healy had reduced his lead to just 22 seconds, with the Irish rider and Paret-Peintre hot in pursuit as they pulled through the large crowds and onto the iconic exposed roads to the summit.

Campenaerts had waited from the break to give Vingegaard another turn on the front, but the third attack from the two-time winner again could not shift Pogačar, who had the answer for everything. They melted the break's gap, and it looked for a moment like they could catch them, but eventually they cancelled each other out.

Healy and Paret-Peintre took a break from throwing big haymakers at each other, having dropped Mas, allowing the Spanish rider to get back in, and Buitrago to join the party out in front inside the final 1.5km.

More attacks were attempted, but the leaders continued to play games before the final 500 metres, where Van Wilder appeared from seemingly nowhere to do a final pull for Paret-Peintre, winding things up in the sprint for victory.

Healy sprinted out of his wheel and led into the final uphill bend to the finish, but Paret-Peintre had enough in the tank to sprint by him and take a historic victory for France.

With the win disappearing up the road, Pogačar bided his time but finally countered with an attack of his own, but Vingegaard was able to respond in his wheel and surge for a fourth time, which the yellow jersey again marked.

This stalemate continued all the way to the line, with the second-place rider on GC unable to shake his rival once again, despite an all-out assault of Mont Ventoux. The gap between them, with only the Alps remaining as a place to make the difference, was marginally extended to 4:15.

Stage Results

General classification