Game over? Tadej Pogacar puts crash concerns to bed and destroys Jonas Vingegaard and co to win stage 12 of 2025 Tour de France

Has Tadej Pogacar just won the 2025 Tour de France? On stage 12, the Slovenian was on a totally different level to any of his rivals, destroying Jonas Vingegaard and co on the Hautacam summit finish to secure an almost unassailable GC lead.

Almost half the peloton got themselves up the road early, as a massive 51-rider breakaway formed. Best placed on GC was Carlos Rodriguez of the INEOS Grenadiers at 5:44 to start the day, with the Spaniard joined by four teammates in the group. Other notable names included the likes of Tim Wellens, Tiesj Benoot, Santiago Buitrago, Lenny Martinez, Fred Wright, Aleksandr Vlasov, Thibau Nys, Mattias Skjelmose, Guillaume Martin, Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe, Marc Hirschi, Michael Storer, Ben O'Connor, Einer Rubio, Aurelien Paret-Peintre, Bryan Coquard, Steff Cras, Michael Woods, Joseph Blackmore and more.

At the front of the peloton, somewhat curiously Uno-X Mobility were controlling things at the front, maintaining a high pace too, keeping the breakaway within two minutes lead.

As things then settled down into a rhythm, it wasn't until around 60km to go and the start of the 11.8km Cat 1 Col du Soulor that the stage ignited once again. As the road headed upwards, the breakaway immediately began to split, whilst in the peloton, Team Visma | Lease a Bike started to emerge at the front of the bunch, increasing the pace.

The increase of the pace was calling very early casualties in the GC group too. With more than 50km to go, Remco Evenepoel was notably dropped. Moments later, the Maillot Jaune Ben Healy was also suffering too. The pace from Visma was damaging their own team too though, as Simon Yates and Matteo Jorgenson also began to look in trouble. Because of Yates and Jorgenson's struggles, Visma immediately relented somewhat, allowing the two super domestiques to get back in contact.

Kevin Vauquelin was also in difficulty by the top of the climb, marking another notable name from the GC at the start of the morning dropped on only the first big climb of the day.

At the front meanwhile, Michael Woods was proving the strongest, summiting the Col du Soulor solo and taking maximum points in the King of the Mountains classification, closing the gap to polka-dot leader Lenny Martinez in the process. By the top of the climb, Evenepoel was just over a minute down on the GC group, having caught and passed Healy. Sadly for him though, there was only a short descent before the road went sharply back upwards again with the Cat 2 Col des Bordères.

Whilst Woods was leading at the descent began, as the roads started to climb again, a stunning downhill from Bruno Armirail had seen the Frenchman turn the tables and by the top of the Col des Bordères Armirail was a minute clear. Evenepoel meanwhile, was battling bravely and on the penultimate climb of the day, got back to around 20 seconds down on the Pogacar - Vingegaard group.

When Simon Yates started pushing things harder once again though, Evenepoel started to get pushed back, and almost immediately both Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss were dropped. Because of this, once again the Visma acceleration stalled to keep the American duo in contention. When Yates then pulled over, his twin brother took control at the front of the group for UAE. With around 28km to go, Remco Evenepoel then completed his incredible comeback and reattached onto the back of the GC group.

As the final Hautacam climb began, Armirail was now the only rider out ahead of the GC group, just under 2:00 clear as well, with the experienced Frenchman putting in a monster performance.

Once the road started heading upwards again though, the gap to Armirail began to drop quickly. With just over 12km to go, Evenepoel started to drop away again, but the Belgian was far from the only one as Jhonatan Narvaez started to implode things for UAE on the final climb. So fast was the Ecuadorian going that soon only Pogacar and Vingegaard were on his wheel. With 11.8km to go, Pogacar then went solo, immediately dropping Jonas Vingegaard.

Incredibly quickly, Armirail was then swallowed up by Pogacar. Vingegaard meanwhile, was working hard to limit his losses and keep the gap at around 20 seconds. Before long though, Pogacar kicked again and Vingegaard started to be really distanced. With 6km to go, the gap between the two stars then reached one minute on the road.

Behind Pogacar, Vingegaard was 1:20 down at 4km to go, with Oscar Onley and Florian Lipowitz proving strongest of the remaining contenders at around 2:20 behind the leader on the road. By 2km to go though, Lipowitz had shaken off Onley and was beginning to hunt down Vingegaard.

By the time Pogacar entered the final kilometre, the gap to Vingegaard was now almost two minutes with not only the stage win but also the general classification seemingly all wrapped up barring a miracle or a disaster.