Mathieu van der Poel holds off Tadej Pogacar to win thrilling stage 2 at the 2025 Tour de France

For the second time in his illustrious career, Mathieu van der Poel has won a stage of the Tour de France. In a thrilling finale to stage 2, the Dutch star held off Tadej Pogacar to win in style.

Four riders got up the road and into the early break on a really miserable day in Northern France. Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) was in the break for the second day in a row, joined this time by Yevgeniy Fedorov (XDS Astana Team), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility), and best placed on GC at only 49 seconds down, Brent Van Moer (Lotto).

With 100km to go, the break was around 2:38 up the road on the peloton, who had been slowed themselves by a big crash in the peloton that brought down the likes of Lennert van Eetvelt, Fred Wright and Jordan Jegat among others.

In the intermediate sprint, there were still some points left for the peloton to sprint for after the breakaway had hoovered up the first four positions. That's when things got heated. Leading the peloton's charge for the sprint, Lidl-Trek's Jonathan Milan and Intermarche - Wanty's Biniam Girmay were involved in a flashpoint at they threw for the line with the Italian visibly demonstrating his fury afterwards.

Milan did win the sprint, taking 11 points for the classification ahead of Tim Merlier and then Girmay, who picked up 9. Because of the rising in the pace of the peloton for the sprint however, it did spell the end of the breakaway's time out front, meaning a full peloton held the front heading into the final 45km of the day.

After a quiet spell, the race was then sparked back into life on the Cat 3 Côte du Haut Pichot with just over 30km to go as Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard came to the front of the bunch and bombed it up the 1.1km ascent. As Van Aert began to fade however, Tim Wellens and Tadej Pogacar carried on the intense pace for UAE, splitting the peloton to bits.

On the next climb, inside the final 10km, things exploded again with all the stars coming out to play. Firstly, Mathieu van der Poel launched a big attack, putting the race into difficulty. Just as things threatened to calm again, Matteo Jorgenson then countered and kept the pace high. Although Pogacar, Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel had all made the elite selection, notable names such as the Maillot Jaune Jasper Philipsen and Primoz Roglic were absent.

On the road before the next climb at 6km to go, the lead group swelled slightly. Kevin Vauquelin attempted to attack at the summit, but whilst he picked up a point for the KoM, he couldn't split the bunch. Moments later though, Jonas Vingegaard then attacked the descent.

With Pogacar and Evenepoel quickly shutting Vingegaard's move down though, it was then another move from Vauquelin and Matteo Jorgenson that caused the next threat. As the flurry of attacks continued ahead of the finale, UAE were working hard to control things. Then, in the uphill sprint for the line, Julian Alaphilippe was the first to go, but couldn't make any difference. Then came Mathieu van der Poel, holding off Tadej Pogacar to take the stage win.