DISCUSSION Tour de France Stage 14 | Was Remco right to abandon the Tour? Did Pogacar not have the legs to win today?

Stage 14 of the Tour de France could well be classified as the queen stage, and the spectacle didn’t disappoint. A late breakaway was formed, with high-caliber riders like Simon Yates, Carlos Rodriguez, Enric Mas, Thymen Arensman, and Lenny Martinez.

The stage victory was predetermined to be for the peloton, as UAE, led by Nils Politt, kept pulling during the whole day. The German stayed in front of the peloton for almost 100 km and did a perfect job by constantly keeping a high pace during the stage.

However, his pace seemed to be too much for Remco Evenepoel. The Belgian superstar suffered a lot during the ascent to the first climb of the day, the Col du Tourmalet, and he eventually withdrew from the race. It is unclear if he was ill or if he just didn’t have the legs, but it is a tough loss for a race like the Tour de France.

Thymen Arensman was one of the most active riders in the breakaway. He launched an attack with 37 km to go, and he managed to obtain the most prestigious win in his professional career.

Pogacar and Vingegaard kept a constant eye on each other. The Dane launched two attacks in the final climb, but Pogacar perfectly followed all his moves. The Slovenian was expected to continue dominating the race, so it was surprising not to see him winning the stage.

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

Tadej Pogacar has proven that he is human. After two days in which he gave absolutely everything, today he seems to have had less legs than usual. But this is what a bad day for Pogacar in 2025 is, to be close to winning the queen stage of the Tour de France.

Jonas Vingegaard was also not as radiant as in yesterday's time trial. On the other hand, Florian Lipowitz now seems to be the top favorite for the third step of the final podium, with Remco Evenepoel out of the race and the German taking time off the rest of the contenders.

As for the stage victory, Thymen Arensman was able to attack at the right time and had the legs to leave the favorites at a sufficient distance. Great work by Carlos Rodriguez and disappointment for Enric Mas in the breakaway of the day. Even Einer Rubio has outlasted him.

It was an interesting day of racing, with Visma piling on the pressure early on, but ultimately it was UAE's stage to control. They had no intentions of attacking, it was clear in the final climb. The gap is big to Vingegaard and there is no need to gain more time, but instead avoid going over the limit and hence diminishing risks of an implosion later in the race. Vingegaard did good by trying and certainly maintains the hope of eventually cracking Pogacar, but it will take more attempts (if it will be, at all, possible).

Remco Evenepoel was of course the main topic of the day. It looked evident he wasn't perfect, but the lack of a proper winter training base made itself apparent at the Tour de Romandie and now again. He is not having the consistency he needed and doesn't have as much mountain training as high rivals.

I didn't expect him to abandon the race as going for stage wins later on would be fully possible, but to be fair he already had one and psychologically he must've been devastated already - with hours of hard racing ahead.

For the stage win Thymen Arensman really pulled off a beautiful win, his form looked so good on stage 10 and today he took full advantage of it, showing what he is capable of.

And the breakaway finally won in the Pyrenees! Thymen Arensman had already tried and today when I saw him take off I had no doubt that he was going to win, which is also INEOS's first in this Tour.

Vingegaard finally attacked on a climb, whether you like one or the other, it's good for the spectacle, Pogacar responded and only beat his rival in the final sprint, gaining 6 seconds. Even so, you get the idea that Emirates didn't have the strength to reduce the gap to the breakaway and allow Pogacar to win.

I'm sorry to hear about Remco Evenepoel's DNF, it's bad news for the race, and I'm also sorry to hear about Mattias Skjelmose's fall. And in 2 weeks of the Tour we've lost 3 top 5 contenders, including João Almeida. Lipowitz did very well again, losing a few seconds to the ‘big 2’ and climbing onto the overall podium, he's the revelation of the race.

Also positive for Onley, Healy and Johannessen (who was in the day's breakaway) and watch out for Roglic, who is already in 6th place overall. Jorgenson was the big disappointment of the day, sinking in the overall standings, and a word for two secondary protagonists: Lenny Martínez and Jonathan Milan, who strengthened their leads in the mountains and points, in the face of the threat of a hungry Tadej Pogacar.  

News of the day: Tadej Pogacar didn't win his fifth stage of the Tour de France. Skjelmose was another victim of the poor organisation of the race. ASO doesn't learn from its mistakes and has the power to multiply them. A poorly signposted traffic island, a large group of cyclists and the inevitable happened... again.

At the end of yesterday's stage I commented that Remco wouldn't finish the race. They laughed at what I said. Today when I saw him at the back of the peloton I said that he wasn't going to finish the day, that he was going to put his foot down. They told me no, that he'd recover on the descent, after he'd taken off. In the end, he abandoned.

When you look at a cyclist and you can read his eyes, his face, the way he pedals... I can imagine the fight he put up on his bike not to give up. But I can't imagine the turmoil in his head right now. As for Visma... I don't know what more I can write about a team that's completely lost.

They're trying to disguise it by looking like they have a plan. But the truth is that they have no plan at all, because they have a group of lost cyclists, incapable of making differences and with no authority in the peloton.

The UAE does what it wants with them, even without an array of pure climbers around Pogacar. I don't want to exaggerate, but to be honest, this Visma looks like the UAE cycling in any race without Tadej Pogacar. It's a team without juice, a stale product. Lipowitz on the podium... but with rivals lurking. The fight for third place will be intense and interesting.

Today made one thing unmistakably clear: Florian Lipowitz and Oscar Onley are the names of the future. When Vingegaard launched his attack, only Pogacar responded right away—and just behind them, Lipowitz.

He was the only rider able to bridge the gap. Everyone else was forced to let go. It wasn’t until Vingegaard kicked again that Lipowitz finally had to concede and let the two big guns go. The German soon joined forces with Austrian Felix Gall, who had previously attacked behind Thymen Arensman but was then left in the dust by the explosive moves from Pogacar and Vingegaard.

Vingegaard’s effort was clearly aimed at locking in second place overall. With Remco Evenepoel out of the race, Lipowitz had become his main rival for the runner-up spot. But Gall and Lipowitz worked well together—and had the climb lasted just 500 meters more, they might have reeled Vingegaard back in.

Yesterday, there was still a sense that Roglic might play a role in Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe’s GC ambitions. Today changed that. Florian Lipowitz has stepped up as the team’s podium man for Paris. The 2025 Tour de France is finally delivering the generational shift we’ve long been anticipating.

It’s no longer just about Slovenia or Denmark—Germany is now firmly part of the conversation. And that Gall, the powerhouse from Austria, came so close to snatching the stage win? A sweet bonus for our Austrian friends. And what about the question: should Lipowitz have attacked before Vingegaard did?

Definitely not. Felix Gall showed that when Pogacar and Vingegaard go all-in, even a 30-second head start on a mountain with 6–7 km to go is meaningless. But Arensman’s margin of 2 minutes 30? That proved just enough. He pulled it off by delivering the ride of his life. Chapeau, Thymen. Chapeau, Florian.  

Remco Evenepoel’s decision to abandon the Tour de France has raised eyebrows, and not just because he was sitting in third place on the general classification when he stepped off his bike.

Everyone knew that Evenepoel wasn’t at his best. That was obvious since the stage ending in Hautacam, where he was dropped with 52 km to go, and it became even more evident yesterday, after a disappointing time trial. But he was still sitting in third position, a huge achievement in any Tour, and certainly in one dominated so thoroughly by Tadej Pogacar. Instead of adjusting his goals, trying to recover, or targeting stage wins from the breakaway, he chose to quit the race.

This isn’t the first time questions have been raised about Remco’s character when things don’t go his way. He’s a rider with massive talent, but also someone who seems to struggle when things don’t go the way he has planned. Once it became clear he couldn't challenge for a podium finish, there appeared to be no plan B. Just the decision to abandon.

After today’s stage, Carlos Rodríguez is placed 10th in the general classification, 23 minutes behind Pogacar. Is he in such bad shape that he can’t even compete for a top 10 overall finish?

This feels less like a medical withdrawal and more like a psychological surrender. And it's a real shame, not only for fans, but for the race itself. A rider of his caliber could have lit up the final week by chasing stages. Thymen Arensman is the best example of it. He achieved a heroic feat today, attacking at the penultimate climb and going for a 37 km solo ride. He withstood the peloton’s pressure and won the stage in a very convincing way.

Yes, the Ineos rider was not initially fighting for the GC, but still, I think Remco could have eventually been capable of replicating this in the last week of the race.

Instead, I feel like his exit leaves a sour taste. Not because riders don’t have the right to stop, of course they do, but because this doesn’t feel like a decision made out of necessity. It feels like a decision made out of frustration.

Anyway, I can be wrong, of course, and Remco might be suffering from some kind of illness, but we will probably never know that.

Regarding the GC battle, today it has become evident that neither UAE nor Visma is the reason why Pogacar and Vingegaard are first and second, respectively. Visma’s strategy was to introduce two riders in the breakaway, thinking about two possible scenarios: fighting for the stage win, or helping Vingegaard in the last climbs.

At the end, they weren’t close to winning, and they couldn’t even help Vingegaard. It is true that the team has actively tried to animate the race, but their tactics have not been effective at all. In the case of the UAE team, given Pogacar’s form, they don’t need any tactics; Pogacar himself is sufficient to win this race. Pogacar IS the tactic.