In his second Tour de France, Remco Evenepoel won his first career stage, taking Wednesday’s longer of the two 2025 Tour de France time trials in brilliant form and bouncing up to second in the GC. Tadej Pogačar, wearing the polka dots, took the yellow jersey from Mathieu van der Poel and leads Evenepoel by 42 seconds. Jonas Vingegaard lost 1:21 to Evenepoel and 1:06 to Pogačar–he is fourth, +1:13 of the Slovenian. Guillaume Boivin was the top Canadian in 90th.
The Course
Wednesday was the longest of the two time trials, 33 flat kilometres around Caen in Normandy. There were three intermediate check points at kilometres 8.2, 16.4 and 24.8.
Memories were fresh of the 17.4-km Critérium du Dauphiné time trial which Evenepoel won by 20 seconds over Vingegaard and 48 seconds over Tadej Pogačar.
New Spanish road champion Iván Romeo wasn’t having a great Tour, but he held the early lead with 37:44. Edoardo Affini knocked the Movistar rider off his perch with 37:15.
Guillaume Boivin was sitting provisional 17th when his compatriot and teammate Michael Woods got passed by the rider that started a minute after him.
The middle of the order made for a bit of a lull in which the cycling world could contemplate Evenepoel vs Vingegaard vs Pogačar. Could Primož Roglič move into the top 10? How far could Austrian Felix Gall and German Florian Lipowitz work they way off the bottom of the top-20?
Just after Lipowitz set the seventh-best second intermediate time, Evenepoel rolled down the ramp.
Evenepoel was just two seconds off Luke Plapp’s best first intermediate time. Meanwhile, Roglič was improving over the course. Once more, eighth-place Enric Mas’ time trialing held him back. White jersey Kévin Vauquelin, the hottest French rider of the summer, was on a good ride.
Vingegaard had the seventh-best mark at Time Check 1, while Pogačar had the third, one second slower than Evenepoel.
By Time Check 3, Evenepoel owned the best split time. Back in Caen, the Belgian spilled Affini from the hot seat. Pogačar was 17 seconds in arrears of Evenepoel at Time Check 3 and made up one second by the finish line.
Moving up on GC was Vauquelin, now on the podium. Lipowitz…
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