DISCUSSION Tour de France Stage 5 | Can anyone beat Remco? Did Vingegaard really disappoint?

Stage 5 of the Tour de France was the first individual time-trial of the race. It was a simple, flat stage where the riders needed to put in an effort lasting over 35 minutes.

Among the first group of riders that started the time-trial, men like Luke Plapp, Iván Romeo, and Edoardo Affini were the ones to set some of the fastest provisional times.

Luke Plapp delivered a fantastic performance in the first part of the stage, setting the fastest time at timepoints 1 and 2. His ride was so good to the point that no one was able to beat his time at these 2 intermediate points. However, he lost pace towards the end of the stage.

Iván Romeo held the provisional best time for a while (37’44’’), until Affini. The European time-trial champion crossed the line at 37’15’’, beating Romeo’s time by 29 seconds.

For some time, it looked as if the Italian’s performance was unbeatable, until the GC men came into action. Remco Evenepoel, Pogacar, and Vingegaard were the main riders in the spotlight today, as the yellow jersey was at stake.

Evenepoel delivered a stellar performance, surpassing Affini’s time and setting a new record at 36'42''. Pogacar finished in second place, 16 seconds behind the Belgian, while securing the yellow jersey, as his rival Vingegaard lost over a minute compared to Evenepoel.

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

All the experts will be quick to say it: “Vingegaard had an off day.” But did he really? The Danish climber, light as a feather compared to the other GC giants, was always going to be at a disadvantage on this kind of power-focused time trial course. Yet he battled like a lion. Remco Evenepoel soared to victory, averaging 54 km/h. Built for these efforts, the Belgian powered through the wind — wind that should’ve been a disadvantage, but for a rider like him, it might as well have been tailwind.

Tadej Pogacar, clocking 53.5 km/h, sits between the two in terms of physique, and so the final standings seem to follow a logical pecking order. And yet, Pogacar rose above himself today - is that even possible? Perhaps still stung by the beating he took in the Dauphiné time trial? Back then, the bike setup wasn’t perfect probably — but today, everything clicked.

He didn’t just race — he made a statement. Did we learn something today? Without a doubt. First and foremost, Tadej Pogacar is in blistering form. Vingegaard? No need for disappointment — a one-minute gap is no disgrace.Florian Lipowitz also deserves a mention.

In the GC he's now only 2 minutes behind Pogacar. He matched his TT-level he showed in the Dauphiné — a ride many saw as the start of his coming of age in grand tours and time trials. And it’s not just Germany that has reason to be optimistic.

France does too: Kevin Vauquelin delivered an absolute monster of a ride.So let’s not forget — the Tour is far from over. The mountains still await. And yet, Tadej Pogacar already stands tall. Very tall.  

A very important GC day, much more than I thought. The Evenepoel victory was expected but quite necessary for him after a very tough few days and a lot of pressure from within and outside the race. The weight will be off his shoulders and he has put himself back in the GC position that is within the natural order of the race.

Tadej Pogacar put in the performance that he wanted and needed, he couldn't have hoped for a better outcome from the day as he jumped into the race lead and put in a minute on Jonas Vingegaard. For Vingegaard it was a bad day, there simply is no other way of putting it. A rider of his calliber and with the performances he's put in the past, there was the responsibility for him to have at least limited the losses to Pogacar to 20/30 seconds maximum - whilst I personally expected him to even win a few.

This will have big implications for the GC because Vingegaard is now already over 1 minute behind Pogacar and this is not time that can be brought back realistically at any point soon. Pogacar, if he and UAE wants, will carry the yellow jersey deep into the race (if nothing unusual happens) and Visma now have the full responsibility to push and attack whilst Pogacar and UAE now have the justification to stay in the wheels and not sacrifice riders or work hard to damage Visma.

Without the presence of Ganna, who abandoned the race on the first stage, Remco Evenepoel only had one rider to bite his wheel, and that was the new yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar. The wind turned out to be decisive on the day, as it began to blow more intensely when the men fighting for the general classification descended the ramp, which obviously had some influence on the final results.

On the positive side, apart from Remco and Evenepoel, the great time trial by Kévin Vauquelin, who flew past Enric Mas (one of the day's losers) and did a great ITT. João Almeida lost a lot of time in the first part, then did a consistent ITT, losing less than 20 seconds to the finish line to the day's winner.

A better start to the ITT and he could have finished in the top 5. Vingegaard and Roglic were kicked in the balls. And a pretty hard one at that. Lipowitz is now ahead of Roglic and the best strategy for Red Bull-BORA was to get together and review the strategy for the race.

Roglic has already said he's not well, it would be time to hand over the leadership of the team to Lipowitz. A final word for Mathieu van der Poel. Good to see you in yellow at the Tour de France, mate. Let's fight for another jersey...

I'd like to look at the complexity of the blowout for Visma that their "back-up leader" Jorgenson. The American was supposed to be the ace up Visma's sleeve, but also he lost a minute to Pogacar. With Almeida closing in in the GC, it no longer seems like Visma will have the opportunity to replay 2022 and simply overwhelm Pogacar with team numbers.

Of course, the Slovenian has also matured since then, and perhaps became too strong to fall for such tricks, but it is one tactical option that Visma no longer seem to have.

Remco Evenepoel withstood the headwind and clearly won the time trial, a normal day for today's best time trialist. Tadej Pogacar was the big surprise of the day, losing just 16 seconds to Remco over 33 kilometres, he promised he would work on the ITT after the Dauphiné and he delivered, he's also wearing yellow, but he won't begrudge the possibility of passing the jersey to an outsider in the overall as early as tomorrow.

Still on the day's winners, Lipowitz was faultless, Red Bull's best man, although Roglic also defended well, don't wear him out working for the Slovenian, because he's a much better card overall. João Almeida went from less to more and came 8th, it wasn't the best of his time trials, but among the overall favourites he was 4th best and moved up in the overall standings, let's move on João.

Jonas Vingegaard was the big loser of the day, he lost more than a minute to his great rival and this could be a strong mental blow, we'll see how he responds over the next few days, which aren't at all favourable to him...

Remco Evenepoel continues to impress in every time trial he starts and is on his way to becoming the greatest time trialist of all time. There's no need to be afraid to say it.

Thanks to his victory, he is back in the fight for the final podium of this Tour de France 2025, even 30 seconds ahead of Jonas Vingegaard in the provisional general classification.

To say that Tadej Pogacar has impressed me would perhaps be a bit strange, but I would never have imagined that he would be so close to Evenepoel and, above all, that he would be more than 1 minute ahead of Vingegaard.

A bit disappointed with Vingegaard's performance and devastated by Enric Mas' result. I don't want to say that I was expecting something very positive, but I was dreaming of him losing less than 2 minutes to Vingegaard and Pogacar. However, he lost more than 2 and a half to Pogi and more than 1 and a half to a below par Vingegaard. The dream of the podium is complicated.

Last but not least, Primoz Roglic's time trial, who has gone from strength to strength and has returned to the Top 10 of the provisional general classification. If he continues to make progress, he can certainly be in contention for the podium.

I was watching the stage on the Spanish national TV, and the commentators Carlos de Andrés and former Tour de France winner Pedro Delgado were constantly praising how beautiful and elegant Remco Evenepoel’s posture on the bike was. The time-trial world champion has achieved an unmatched level of perfection and efficiency. Right now, in this type of terrain, it is almost impossible to beat him.

His trunk does not move an inch, and his head remains perfectly aligned with his body. In today’s era, where every single detail counts, and riders spend large amounts of time practising in wind tunnels to achieve the maximum levels of aerodynamics, I don’t know what experts could do to take his performance to another level. Without Filippo Ganna, he was the main favourite to win the stage, and today, he didn’t disappoint us.

Tadej Pogacar was the closest man to him. I believe his time-trial was neither outstanding nor disappointing. He was just at his usual level, which is very high. This kind of terrain will always benefit Remco more than him, so losing just 16 seconds to him is a good result.

Pogacar clearly recovered from the Dauphiné’s time-trial. He said he was going to make some adjustments and work on this discipline, and the results are there. Now, let’s see what stage 13 (uphill time-trial) brings us. This scenario will definitely be more favourable for Pogacar, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet.

The Slovenian has met his objective: becoming the yellow jersey, but he is also in green and polka dot. Back in 1969, Eddy Merckx achieved the unique feat of winning these three jerseys. This was the first, and to date, only time a single rider managed to win all three classifications in the same Tour de France edition. Will Pogacar match this?

Now, the negative surprise of the day (for many) was Jonas Vingegaard. But was it really such an underwhelming performance, or are we exaggerating a bit? I have read many opinions stating that he had a bad day today, and something went wrong, as an attempt to explain his “poor” time-trial.

In my opinion, this outcome could be expected to a certain extent. Jonas is not a pure time-trialist as it is the case for Remco, and today’s stage was essentially flat and kind of windy as well. Vingegaard is a lighter rider compared to Pogacar, and he struggles a bit more in these kinds of conditions. The uphill time-trial should fit him very well, so let’s see how he performs there.

Out of the big three, I also wanted to take a moment to remark how good of a rider Kévin Vauquelin is. Not only did he surprise all of us with his terrific performance at the Tour de Suisse, but he is also stepping up on a big stage like the Tour de France. So far, he has three top 10s in the first five stages. He is also showing dominance in time-trials (he was 4th in Suisse, 10th in Tirreno-Adriatico, and 1st in Etoile de Bessèges).

Given the current situation of Arkéa, the team is very fortunate to have such a complete rider like him.