DISCUSSION Tour de France Stage 13 | Is the podium fight all that's left in this Tour?

Stage 13 of the Tour de France was the second day of the Pyrenean triptych, and it featured a rare uphill time trial to Peyragudes. It was a stage made for pure climbers, so a battle between the GC men was expected.

But one rider challenged all the men in the peloton and came close to accomplishing a feat: Luke Plapp set the fastest time at the start of the day, and stayed in the hot seat for a long time. Only four riders were eventually able to improve his time: Florian Lipowitz, Primoz Roglic, Jonas Vingegaard, and, of course, Tadej Pogacar.

The Slovenian completed once again an out-of-this-world climb, winning the stage with ease. He also increased the gap with the rest of the competitors, and it is now difficult to think of a scenario where Pogacar doesn’t end up winning this Tour.

The battle for the podium will now be the most interesting fight to see. Contenders like Lipowitz, Roglic, Oscar Onley, or Evenepoel will battle for it, with the third spot now belonging to Remco.

However, Evenepoel’s time trial was truly underwhelming, and there are rising concerns about his chances of being on the final podium in Paris.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

Tadej Pogacar has done what was expected of him, Jonas Vingegaard has been at a very high level and Remco Evenepoel has completely collapsed.

The Slovenian takes another step in his fight for a fourth Tour de France, the Dane has shown to be far above the rest, but far from his historic rival, and the Belgian is complicated the podium.

Pogacar is now just one stage win away from entering the Top 5 of the riders with the most stage wins in the history of the Tour. Vingegaard looks like he's going to have to settle for second once again. And Evenepoel has gone downhill and has four men within striking distance of his place on the provisional podium.

One of them is Primoz Roglic, who is going from strength to strength and can still dream of the podium. In between are Florian Lipowitz, Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin, who are emerging as the new generation in this Tour 2025.

As for the Spaniards, they have been in their place. 3 in the top 20 with Carlos Rodríguez, Enric Mas and Cristián Rodríguez, who is doing a great job to have Vauquelin as well placed as possible, as well as fighting for his own interests.

A tough chrono climb, with a finishing straight that never seemed to end. Jonas Vingegaard was at his best and did an excellent time, but he's not on the level of Tadej Pogacar.

The Slovenian cyclist is in extraordinary form. He rode a sublime ITT, beating his rivals in every section, only to raise his arms at the finish line, such was his superiority. Florian Lipowitz was slower than his teammate Primoz Roglic, but stronger than Remco Evenepoel.

The German has a real shot at the podium in Paris. Wout van Aert had a few words to say at the end, at the time of writing I don't know what they contained, but it seems that the Belgian Visma rider isn't happy with the organisation.

Luke Plapp sat in his chair for most of the day. The Jayco man showed his qualities and while the men in the top-10 of the general classification didn't start arriving, the only one who could have beaten his time was Lenny Martinez.

Pogacar reached the milestone of 21 stage victories in the Tour de France and will surely leave the 2025 edition with a few more in his pocket. At this rate, Mark Cavendish's record is just around the corner.

Luke Plapp spent hours in the hot seat as the provisional leader of this grueling mountain time trial—laptop on his lap or not. The Australian had posted the fastest splits throughout and delivered an explosive final three kilometers. As more and more top-20 contenders crossed the line, it became increasingly clear just how dominant Plapp had been on the last stretch.

Even riders who were ahead at the earlier time checks couldn’t match his pace to the finish.Then Primoz Roglic hit checkpoint two. The Slovenian star from Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe smashed Plapp’s time by over 30 seconds.

But the drama wasn’t over yet. Florian Lipowitz, riding the best time trial of his career, came surprisingly close to Roglic at the same split and only dropped time in the final segment—not in comparison to Plapp, though.

In fact, the young German outpaced the Olympic time trial champion to secure a brilliant fourth-place finish—behind only an unleashed Roglic and the two generational greats, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. It’s now clear that both Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe riders are in striking distance of Evenepoel’s third place.  

After what we have seen today, it is difficult to think that anything other than Pogacar winning the race and Vingegaard coming in second can happen. Hopefully, they don’t suffer any crash or illness, but that is the only thing that would change the outcome that is fated to happen.

So, with the first and second positions already decided, the remaining spot on the podium is third, and that is not that easy to predict. Remco is currently holding that spot, but his time trial was bad, really bad for what we expect from him. His performance yesterday was also worrying, as he dropped very early, with 52 km to go, although he was able to recover and didn’t lose as much time as was expected.

Today, he received a very hard hit. Vingegaard overtook him in the last meters of the ascent. Considering that he had started the time trial 2 minutes before Remco, and it was just a 10 km long effort, this must have been a hard blow for the Belgian.

I know Evenepoel is mentally strong, but let’s see if today’s result does not worsen his performance in the following days. The race is long, but we have seen other guys like Lipowitz show to be in much better shape than him. The German is just six seconds behind Remco, and tomorrow he has a perfect chance to take over the third place on the podium.

Perhaps he is not as experienced as Remco, but he has a better team surrounding him, and he has probably had a morale boost after the first two stages in the Pyrenees. Even after Roglic’s dominant performance today, I still believe Lipowitz will be (or has to be) the leader of Red Bull Bora, a team that has surprised me positively during the second week of the race.

Apart from him and Roglic, Oscar Onley and Kevin Vauquelin could also have a shot at this third position, but I think it is less realistic to think about that, especially in the case of the French Arkéa rider.

One of the things that surprises me the most is the lack of competition that we are witnessing for the general classification in this Tour de France. If we look outside the top 10, the next riders that we can find are Ben Healy, Carlos Rodríguez, Jordan Jegat, Guillaume Martin, and Enric Mas.

Neither of them is currently fighting just for the GC. Yes, Carlos and Enric’s initial objective was to do it, but they have already lost more than 20 and 24 minutes with Pogacar, respectively, and they are expected to fight for breakaway wins instead of the GC, and I think that will be the same objective for the rest of the riders I mentioned.

I find it striking that no more candidates are fighting for a good spot in the general classification. It looks like a top 10 in the GC will be very cheap this year. This is definitely not good for the fans. We are in the second week of the race, and the only real fight we are yet to see in the next days is the battle for the podium.

I just hope the breakaway has some freedom during the upcoming stages. Many riders have shown terrific legs to fight for it, and the remaining stages might deliver us something special.