ANALYSIS | The top 5 moments of the 2025 Tour de France featuring Pogacar, Vingegaard, Van der Poel and Healy

Just like that, the 2025 Tour de France has come to its conclusion already. Tadej Pogacar left Paris with his fourth yellow jersey and another chapter added to his dominance at the Tour de France, but the story of the 2025 edition was richer than a one-man show. Across three weeks, the race gave us moments that reminded us why we love this sport and look forward to July every year. There were collapses, comebacks, and one Frenchman finally conquering Mont Ventoux. From the Pyrenees to Paris, this Tour delivered action nearly every day.

The race belonged to Pogacar in the end, but along the way, Wout van Aert reminded us why he’s one of the sport’s biggest names, Ben Healy turned aggression into yellow, and Mathieu van der Poel lit up the first half of the race before illness cut him short. And, Valentin Paret-Peintre gave France its long-awaited redemption on one of cycling’s most sacred climbs. Here are the five defining moments that shaped and elevated the 2025 Tour de France.

On Stage 12 of the 2025 Tour de France, Tadej Pogacar didn’t just win the stage, he ended the GC fight for good. After crashing the day before in Toulouse, there were questions about how much damage he'd suffered. He answered them with force on the Hautacam, dropping Jonas Vingegaard on the early slopes of the climb and crossing the line solo for his 20th career Tour stage win. That was the moment the yellow jersey battle stopped being a contest. We saw that day, that Pogacar truly was on another level.

Pogacar built a gap of over two minutes on Vingegaard, and his performance not only restored him to the Maillot Jaune but also reversed the humiliation he had suffered on the same climb in 2022. This was personal. He did it with his usual poker face, revealing little, but the timing of his attack and the devastation it caused spoke volumes.

Vingegaard tried to stay close but simply couldn’t. Florian Lipowitz was the only rider even remotely near the top two, finishing just 11 seconds behind the Dane, but even that was well off Pogacar’s pace.

Ben Healy, who had been riding high in yellow after a breakout ride earlier in the race, cracked early and never recovered, and Remco Evenepoel had to fight to stay in the GC battle. Hautacam was where the 2025 Tour de France turned into a procession for Pogacar, who would finish in Paris with four stage wins, the polka dot jersey, and a fourth overall title. The GC fight was already over by the time the riders reached the Alps.

That day on the Hautacam was the real decider.

Mathieu van der Poel doesn’t usually like the Tour de France, he’s said as much many times. But this year’s edition seemed to be built for him in the early stages, and he took full advantage on Stage 2, when he outsprinted none other than Tadej Pogacar to win his first Tour stage in four years. “My last stage win was four years ago. It was time for another one,” he said after the finish, and it felt like a moment where everything clicked for him on the roads of France again.

The stage was aggressive from the start, and Van der Poel didn’t wait around to see who had the legs. He made the race hard, broke things apart with 20km to go, and when Pogacar tried to go clear in the final, Van der Poel responded like it was a spring classic and essentially led himself out to victory. By the time he hit the final corner, he had just enough to fend off Pogacar and take a win that had been a long time coming.

Unfortunately, his Tour was cut short in the second week due to illness, but for the days he was there, he gave the race something it had been missing in recent years: a proper taste of classics racing. His win on Stage 2 was more than just a result, it was a reminder of what the Tour could look like if Van der Poel is enjoying himself.

Without him in the final week, the race felt different. Quieter. Less chaotic. And a little less fun.

Last year, Ben Healy thrilled the Tour with his relentless attacks but never quite got the results to match. In 2025, that changed.

On Stage 10, after a strong breakaway effort in Normandy, Healy rode himself into the Maillot Jaune. It was a reward for his aggressive riding across the first ten days, and the first time an Irish rider had led the Tour in decades. Healy also won the Super Combativity award for the 2025 Tour, proving that he had left his impact on the Tour.

But it wasn’t just his tenure in yellow that made the Irishman’s tenure at the Tour special. The other defining moment of his Tour came on stage 6, where Healy launched a superb attack from the break to solo to his first Tour stage win. When he took yellow four days later, Healy wrapped up an incredible first week.

He wouldn’t hold the yellow jersey for long. Pogacar took it back just two days later on the Hautacam. But Healy’s week in the limelight, including multiple breakaways and tactical gambles that mostly paid off, earned him fans and accolades. He turned heads in 2024. In 2025, he confirmed he belonged.

It had been 23 years since a Frenchman last won a Tour de France stage on Mont Ventoux. That changed this year when Valentin Paret-Peintre crossed the line solo, arms raised, after one of the most emotional rides of the race.

“I can’t believe what’s happened,” he said, overwhelmed in the finish area. For a rider who had never been tipped as a contender for Ventoux, it was a stunning, career-defining victory.

The French public had been waiting. And waiting. Every time the Tour returned to Ventoux, the ghosts of Richard Virenque, of Jean-François Bernard, of Thibaut Pinot’s near-misses loomed large. This year, Paret-Peintre erased all of that. He timed his attack perfectly on the final slopes and held off a strong chase from Healy and Lipowitz. As he climbed through the crowds lining the white gravel switchbacks, the atmosphere gave him an extra boost.

It wasn’t just a win for Paret-Peintre, but for his nation and team also, who had lost Remco Evenepoel just days before. In a race dominated by Pogacar, where the yellow jersey fight ended early, Paret-Peintre gave the home fans something to shout about. For many French supporters, his win on the Ventoux was more memorable than anything else this July.

After three weeks of brutal racing, few expected fireworks on the final day. But Wout van Aert had other ideas. On the Montmartre climb in Paris, the Belgian powered away from the peloton and dropped Tadej Pogacar to win the final stage.

“We should be proud,” Van Aert said, nodding to his Team Visma | Lease a Bike team, which had endured a punishing Tour at the hands of Pogacar and UAE up until that day. For three years Van Aert had been stuck on nine tour stage wins, on Sunday in Paris he finally made it ten.

This wasn’t just a sprint on the Champs-Élysées. The 2025 finale, redesigned to finish at the top of Montmartre, offered puncheurs and climbers one last stage to make a difference. Van Aert seized it. As Pogacar surged forward with the yellow jersey secure, Van Aert shadowed him, waited, then attacked. He not only held Pogacar off, he left him behind, something no one else had been able to do all race.

Jonas Vingegaard, Van Aert’s teammate and two-time Tour winner, had spent the race trying to unseat Pogacar without success. On the final day, Van Aert finally cracked him. No, it did not have any significance to the overall GC, but it gave Visma something to cheer about in a race where they tried, tried, and tried again,

The 2025 Tour de France will be remembered as the one Pogacar truly owned, but it was by no means a one man show. Wout van Aert’s final day triumph was a last punch thrown in a fight already decided. Mathieu van der Poel’s early brilliance reminded fans how thrilling the Tour can be when classics specialists find their rhythm. Ben Healy earned both a stint in yellow and the combativity prize, showing that he has what it takes on the grandest of stages. And in a moment that mattered more than many podiums, Valentin Paret-Peintre gave the home crowd a reason to believe again.

For all the talk of inevitability around Pogacar, this Tour didn’t lack drama. Yes, the GC battle may have ended on the Hautacam, but elsewhere, the race was still very much alive. So, which of the moments we have mentioned here was your favourite? And what others have we missed from the list? Let us know in the comments below!