Australia and Alpecin-Deceuninck scored again in the 112th Tour de France on Saturday’s penultimate stage, sprinter Kaden Groves the strongest out of a breakaway. In completing his Grand Tour Cycle of stage wins, his tenth in total, Groves gave Alpecin its third stage triumph from three different riders. Another Australian fugitive, Ben O’Connor, won two days ago. With only Paris to come, Tadej Pogačar has one hand on his fourth Tour de France trophy and is poised to join Chris Froome on a quartet of yellow jerseys.
With the GC pretty much locked down, Florian Lipowitz will be the first German on the final podium since Andreas Kloden finished runner-up to Óscar Pereiro in 2006.
The Course
Saturday’s penultimate day was seemingly drawn up for a successful breakaway, as it was rich with little climbs both uncategorized and categorized.
There were a lot of attacks in the rainy first 20 km, Louis Barré getting to the top of Cat. 4 Col de la Croix de la Serra first. For a moment Oscar Onley and Felix Gall were distanced. Then a move with a little more legs flared out–thirteen riders took on Cat. 4 Côte de Valfin, with Stage 15 winner Tim Wellens scoring the one KOM point. At the midway point of 184 km, the breakaway had only a 2:00 lead, maybe because of the inclusion of 11th place Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies), the second-best-placed Frenchman in the 112th edition.
The penultimate climb was 3.5-km, 9 percent Côte de Thésy. Would the break fragment here? Jegat bolted on the others, but it would be Harry Sweeny nabbing the KOM points. Wout van Aert and Michael Woods were part of a chase group attempting to bridge. Sweeney went solo on the way to the final classified climb, fighting the rain and headwind.
HONK HONK 🚨 MAKE WAY FOR HARRY SWEENY📸: @gettyimages.com
— EF Pro Cycling (@efprocycling.com) 2025-07-26T13:23:00.893Z
Some of Sweeney’s breakmates reunited with him on the final climb of Côte de Longeville. The peloton lassoed Woods’ group. A nasty crash took down several riders in the group, leaving Groves, Frank van den Broek and Jake Stewart leading the race. Groves made a break for it with 17 km to go. A quintet chased 28 seconds behind and another handful of riders was +0:48 of…
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