A cycle race for the ages

For the next three weeks or so, we’ll witness a race that has elegance, grit and power, tactics, courage and cunning, teamwork and individualism.

First held in 1903 to sell newspapers, the Tour de France now draws a global, multimedia audience of 3-billion and attracts 10-million spectators along the route.

Since 1954, the route has ventured into neighbouring countries 26 times, contributing to the race’s international appeal, but this year the 21 stages are all in France.

This year also features the highest number of riders, with 23 teams of eight. The inclusion of a 23rd team, an extra wild card from road racing’s second-tier UCI ProSeries, has stoked controversy, with many of the established, elite teams’ sporting directors framing their objections as safety concerns, or, simply, changing the tour’s ground rules at a late stage.

The teams are named after sponsors, mainly European brands in industries that have marketing associations with cycling, such as supermarkets and mobile communications companies. But some seem odd, like bathroom fittings firm Hansgrohe, and Soudal Quick-Step — a tie-up between an adhesives manufacturer and a flooring brand. At least that has a ring to it; Jayco AlUla, combining the Australian recreational vehicle manufacturer with a Saudi Arabian holiday resort is a tongue-twister.

On the road, especially in the massed, sinuous peloton, the teams’ colours are a peacocking blur, a spectacle that clashes with and amplifies the glorious scenery flashing by: historical and architectural landmarks, lush farmlands, forests, rugged mountains with switchbacks, and lunar-like summit terrain.

The organisers throw in surprises at almost every stage: a windswept section, an uphill sprint, narrow passages or cobblestone roads with a high crash risk.

The route and scheduling appear particularly punishing this year. Traditionally, the second Monday of the race is a rest day, but this year it falls on July 14, Bastille Day, so the riders are expected to display appropriate courage and fortitude in the first mountain stage, with a summit finish at Le Mont Dore.

There are five subsequent mountain stages traversing the Massif Central, the Jura, and the passes of the Pyrenees and the Alps.

Stage 18, from Courchevel to Col de la Loze at 2,300m, is the first of two brutal back-to-back days in the Alps, including a near-unbroken uphill 50km stretch and three hors catégorie (HC) climbs, rated so steep or long, or both, as to be extraordinarily lung-busting. The final 6km section has a 9% gradient, ramping up to 24% in the last 200m to the finish.

Stage 19 is shorter, 130km from Albertville to the Alpine ski resort of La Plagne, but it features 62km of pure climbing, including two HC peaks.

These days will be gripping to watch as the cyclists grind upwards at 20km/h then descend at white-knuckle speeds edging 100km/h. These two stages will be “hell on earth” for the riders, says Jens Voigt, a 17-time veteran of the tour.

There are other stage finishes at iconic peaks that have provided sporting and visual drama in many previous races: Hautacam, Col du Tourmalet leading on to Superbagnères, and Mont Ventoux, known as the Giant of Provence.

It’s on these days when huge time gaps will surely open up, as the toll of consecutive mountain stages with consistent gradients of 7%-9% cracks even the strongest climbers.

Except this doesn’t always lead to final, or general classification, victory. The 1989 race featured no fewer than five time trials, one of which was, uniquely, the last stage in Paris when Greg LeMond gained enough on the yellow jersey, Laurent Fignon, to win by the tour’s smallest margin of eight seconds. And, rather than attacking in the mountains, Miguel Induráin’s five consecutive victories, from 1991 to 1995, were largely attributable to incredible time-trialling, forging leads which his teams defended in the mountains.

Still, and despite the all-round power and versatility of riders epitomised by the Belgian Wout van Aert, the tour’s defining moments — where it is won or lost — are in the Alps or the Pyrenees.

We may witness, too, dreadful crashes that force riders to retire from the race — though not as often as you’d assume, because elite cyclists ride through pain, recover remarkably overnight, and continue.

Withdrawals are sometimes bizarre, like unlucky Fiorenzo Magni in the 1950 race, a time when riders made up national teams. He wore the leader’s yellow jersey into the 12th stage but was forced to quit when teammate Gino Bartali insisted on pulling Italian participation after consistent harassment by French spectators. Magni won three Giro d’Italia races, but never the tour.

In 1991 Stephen Roche, doing his own warm-up route, somehow forgot the start time for stage 2, a team time trial. Eventually finishing 14 minutes behind the rest of his team, he was disqualified. At least the Irishman had previously won the tour, in 1987.

Overall race and individual stage times are difficult to compare year by year because of differences in the route, stage sequences, tactics and factors like the wind and heat. And bike design and support technologies, related to the teams’ resources, have evolved enormously in recent decades.

Most significantly, sports science gears continual performance gains. Nonetheless, are we watching real, moral competition? Do today’s elite cyclists participate à l’eau claire, with purity, as former tour rider Christophe Bassons called for after quitting in disgust in 1999?

In a 2013 interview with Le Monde, Lance Armstrong — his seven consecutive 1999-2005 triumphs wiped from the official list of winners — said it was impossible to win the tour without doping, adding: “I didn’t invent doping.” Armstrong is a cycling pariah now, but doping was declared illegal in France only in 1965, and it’s undeniable that even for decades afterwards substances supported the riders through weeks of serious physical and mental strain. 

A Netflix documentary on the 2023 tour poses the doping question to Groupama-FDJ sporting director Marc Madiot, who shrugs enigmatically. “It’s part of cycling,” he mutters, noting that “in other sports it’s not talked about”. Is Madiot acknowledging that doping is still prevalent in cycling, or is he referring to the rumours and innuendo that blanket the sport? He refuses to be drawn further, but hints at what may be revealed, saying: “There’s always a point at which the truth comes out.”

It seems clear that doping cannot be as endemic as it was in the 1990s and 2000s. The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) now implements rigorous drug testing, including longitudinal performance data and bio passports, and there is more transparency. But head of performance for UAE Team Emirates Jeroen Swart, a South African sports science professor, declined to respond to questions about his team’s protocols.

Avid cycling followers and noncycling fans alike can be forgiven for what The Guardian calls a white noise of scepticism, or the sense that doping innovations inevitably stay ahead of monitoring and detection techniques, especially when we see performances such as Jonas Vingegaard’s sensational time trial in 2023 in which he gained 1min 38sec on closest rival Tadej Pogačar. “From Another Planet” headlined the tour’s official publication, L’Équipe, the next day, echoing its 1999 tour coverage lead when Armstrong similarly blew away the rest of the field.

Financial doping, too, is now a competitive concern. Team budgets average about €40m, but these vary significantly. Richer teams, such as UAE Team Emirates, with €55m-€60m, have more resources and high-ranked riders than those with smaller, €20m-€25m sponsorship funding, like Groupama-FDJ. The UCI is considering budget caps from 2026.

Who are this year’s contenders? Last year’s winner and world No 1, Pogačar of Slovenia, is the clear favourite. Vingegaard is a pedigreed, proven winner, his Visma–Lease a Bike team having helped outsmart Pogačar in 2022, and the Dane outpowering him in 2023. Vingegaard has kept a low profile since a crash in the Paris-Nice stage race in March, but claims to have recovered.

Remco Evenepoel, third last year, and five-time Grand Tour winner Primož Roglič are underdogs with a fair crack at glory. And this year’s course may yield advantages to Van Aert or Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, world No 2 and the only man to win a world championship in three disciplines, cyclo-cross, gravel and road. But they’re long-shot outsiders, and both riders’ team directors are more likely to prioritise ambitions around stage wins and the points-based green jersey classification. 

There are no South African riders this year, so we won’t see a repeat of Robbie Hunter’s sprint finish win in 2007 or Darryl Impey’s memorably tactical stage win in 2019.     

Conventionally, in one of the race’s quirks, riders share champagne en route to Paris on the final day.   

But that tradition may fall away this year. The procession into Paris could turn into an all-out battle, with three ascents around the city’s highest natural point, the Montmartre, promising last-stage fireworks. If the winner and podium positions are still up for grabs, the Champs-Élysées cobbles may shake more than just the riders’ bones.

The tour is less a race than a saga — a travelogue window into France, poetry in motion, sporting theatre and war. From the scurrying domestiques sacrificing themselves for their team to the lonely glory of a breakaway, from suffering on summits to nerve-jangling sprints, it’s a portal to something we all like to believe we have: an indefatigable spirit.

The 2025 Tour de France runs from July 5-21