Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) stormed to victory and the overall lead on stage 2 of the Tour de France in a dramatic small group sprint against GC favourites Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).
In the uphill finish at Boulogne-sur-Mer and at the end of a late series of short, punchy climb, Van der Poel went from distance, with Pogačar closing in but finally unable to match the Dutch star.
The series of tough, technical late ascents weeded out many of the fast men and saw a late attack by Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). But after UAE's João Almeida dragged a reduced front group back up to the German, Van der Poel was able to fend off the 2024 overall winner and top favourite for yellow in the 2025 race, with Vingegaard showing strong form in unfamiliar terrain to claim third.
"It was super difficult, the final was actually harder than I thought," Van der Poel said as he celebrated his team's second stage win in as many days.
"I was really motivated. It's been three or four years since I last won a stage (2021 - Ed.) so it was about time I got another one.
"People said I was a favourite for today, but if you see which riders were up there on the climbs, I think I did a really good job to be there."
How it unfolded
(Image credit: Getty Images)
After a 15-minute delay to the start because of traffic jams outside the small start town of Lauwin-Planque, the race began in miserably rainy conditions.
Unsurprisingly, given the weather and the unusual length of the stage, no sooner had four riders - Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), Brent Van Moer (Lotto), stage 1 breakaway Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R) and Yevgeniy Fedorov (XDS-Astana) - made it out of the pack than things shut down completely behind. Intermarché-Wanty joined forces with Alpecin-Deceuninck to keep things under control, but with the gap hovering around 2:40 to 2:50 for many kilometres, it was clear that it was nothing more than a token holding action.
For the next two hours, there was barely any real change in the scenario. Given the technical finale, it was fortunate that the weather slowly improved, the roads dried out and multiple rain jackets were handed back into the following team cars.
After crashing with Fedorov earlier in the breakaway, Leknessund's woes continued with a rear tyre puncture, but he was able to regain contact as the race gradually neared the first classified climb of the day, the category 4 Côte de Cavron-Saint Martin. Leknessund finally outpowered Van Moer at the end of a thrilling two-up duel, too, tearing past the Belgian for the single point on offer.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
As the 209.1-kilometre stage reached its halfway point, a sharp rise in speed in the front of the pack was matched by a crash at the back, involving around a dozen riders including Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) and Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious). Van Eetvelt was one of the worst affected, but with three teammates guiding him along, the Lotto GC leader slowly regained ground on the pack.
The rise in tension was a foretaste of what was to come, though, as shortly afterwards when the race hit the coast roads and the wind speed picked up, the GC men began moving closer to the front and the intermediate sprint in Enocq acted as an unofficial start to the race finale.
Although the bunch couldn't quite bring back the early break before the sprint, taken by Fedorov, the real surprise came when Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) took fifth place in the peloton, only to roundly berate Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) for an unspecified action during the build-up.
The four breakaway riders were swept up shortly afterwards, and as the road began to rise and fall relentlessly on a series of short, late climbs, the battle for position became even more intense, with Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) fighting for a long time to get back on after a mechanical.
Yevgeniy Fedorov leads the breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
Just as in the crosswinds of stage 1, Visma-Lease a Bike dominated at the front as the bunch stormed onto the second of the day's classified climbs, the category 3 Côte de Haut Pichot. Wout van Aert and Tim Wellens drove hard on the short, narrow climb for Vingegaard and Pogačar respectively, and although there was a minor crash involving Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers), thankfully there were no serious incidents.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) was briefly caught out in a split over the top, though, when some 40 riders moved briefly away, but his group was able to rejoin quickly.
With all the challenges cancelling each other out, the outcome of the stage was going to be dictated by the final two ascents of the day, the Côte de Saint-Etienne-au-Mont (cat. 3) and the Côte de Outreau (cat. 4), this latter just five kilometres from the line.
A section of broad, open road allowed all the top teams to mass on the front of a large bunch, even if stragglers including Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious). But one potential stage contender, Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) and a big group of sprinters including Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) had no chance of getting back on terms.
The fight for position went all the way to the foot of the Saint-Etienne-au-Mont climb, as Soudal and Tudor joined forces on one side of the broad road, EF Education-EasyPost on the left. Once again on the severely technical run-in, Visma-Lease a Bike were notably present at the front at the crunch moments.
The 15% slopes of the Saint-Etienne-au-Mont was first tackled by Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ), with Pogačar and Vingegaard close behind as the climb narrowed the group to a single-file line. A lunge from Visma's Matteo Jorgenson was shadowed by Pogačar as the front group briefly whittled down to six or eight, with Evenepoel close behind this time and then briefly making a dig in person to keep the pace high. Philipsen, meanwhile, was some 11 seconds further back and in danger of losing his lead.
A larger group containing Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) regained contact at the foot of the Côte d'Outreau, the last ascent of the day, but the ferocious skirmishing between Alpecin - now riding for Van der Poel, not Philipsen - UAE and Visma continued and ultimately shred the peloton to a front group of less than 30.
First, Pogačar darted ahead to take the last point on offer at the top of the climb - making a surprise move into the lead of the mountains classification - and then Vingegaard tried to ambush the opposition. But neither Visma nor UAE were willing to let their arch-rivals gain the upper hand.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Four kilometres from the line, after all the top GC team sabre-waving, there was a sudden change of narrative as 2024 stage 2 winner Kevin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) snapped away, only for Jorgenson to reel him in. UAE, though, were having none of it, even when Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) made a very determined effort on the last segment of flat that remained. The German still had a narrow advantage as the road began to lift towards the finish, but João Almeida was right behind, dragging Pogačar right up to the last move.
Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) briefly launched a spectacular bid for glory, only to fizzle out almost as quickly, and it ultimately only served as a lead-out for another former World Champion, Van der Poel to go from distance, and finally after a long acceleration claim his 55th pro win. The GC battle, though, once again also featured strongly as there were only 29 riders in the front group behind the Dutch star.
This time and unlike on stage 1, the leaders contained both Roglič and Evenepoel alongside Pogačar and Vingegaard, but others - most notably Jayco-AlUla's Ben O'Connor and Ineos Grenadiers Carlos Rodríguez - were both missing from the mix. In just two days of racing, in fact, a hierarchy in the Tour's overall classification is already beginning to take shape, even if at the top of the GC ranking and in terms of stage wins, Alpecin-Deceuninck are ruling supreme.
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Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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