PREVIEW | Tour de France 2025 stage 1 - Milan, Merlier, Philipsen and Girmay battle for the first yellow jersey of the race; Possible echelons

The 2025 Tour de France will be the biggest and most important race of the season and will be taking place between the 5th and 27th of July. This is the sport's climax of the season and every year it delivers memorable action. We preview stage 1.

The race starts off with a flat stage in Lille where the sprinters will have the opportunity of taking the first yellow jersey for the first time in several years. The riders will have three fourth-category climbs where they can fight for the first KOM jersey and one of them will be the famous cobblestones of Mont Cassel - usually used in the 4 Jours de Dunkerque.

On this day however neither the climbs or the early intermediate sprint should have an effect on the outcome of the day, but instead everyone will be saving their legs towards the final hours of racing and what should be a fast and furious finale back into Lille.

It will also be rather technical. The final kilometer not necessarily, as we have a 1.5-kilomete rlong finishing straight, but from 4.5 to 1.5 there will be a few tricky corners and this being the first - and an easy - day means that most will arrive very fresh, speeds will be very high and GC teams will all be looking to enter the section in front. In the end it will be a flat sprint and nothing should come in the way of the pure specialists.

Exposed roads the entire day you could say, and the peloton will be exposed to strong winds. That's right it's not an irony, the threat of echelons does exist already on the very first day of the race and everyone will be on their toes not to lose the race. Simultaneously, this will lead to the increase of tension overall which can cause crashes throughout the day with more ease. A dangerous, dangerous day...

From 140 to 70 kilometers to the finish there will be a crosswind from the left whilst coming back to Lille the riders are likely to also face some crosswinds - but now from the right. If the wind plays a role in the final sprint then it'll favour the pure fast men, as it may come as a tailwind.

Crashes and splits can severely change the names that will be fighting for the stage win at the end of the day. The GC teams will be those who will pay the most attention and spend the most to stay in front all day long, but a few teams such as Lidl-Trek and Alpecin-Deceuninck have almost an entire flat-oriented team which can certainly be a match to the likes of UAE and Visma. However it's impossible to predict who may or may not be affected by these, if they happen. Since it is the first day of the Tour, a pan-flat sprint with no warm-up, then we can take a look at the leadouts - whilst in the following days we may look at the results themselves.

So it's fair to look at the main favourites and how their leadouts compare:

Jonathan Milan - Simone Consonni - Edward Theuns

Jasper Philipsen - Kaden Groves - Mathieu van der Poel - Jonas Rickaert

Tim Merlier - Bert van Lerberghe - Pascal Eenkhoorn

Jordi Meeus - Danny van Poppel - Mick van Dijke - Laurence Pithie

Dylan Groenewegen - Luka Mezgec - Elmar Reinders - Luke Durbridge

Soren Waerenskjold - Magnus Cort Nielsen - Jonas Abrahamsen

Alberto Dainese - Marius Mayrhofer - Marco Haller

Biniam Girmay - Vito Braet - Laurenz Rex

Pascal Ackerman/Jake Stewart - Matis Louvel

Tobias Lund Andresen - Pavel Bittner

Phil Bauhaus - Fred Wright - Robert Stannard

Arnaud De Lie - Jasper de Buyst - Jarrad Drizners

Cees Bol - Davide Ballerini - Mike Teunissen - Yevgeniy Fedorov

Bryan Coquard - Alexis Renard

Arnaud Démare - Amaury Capiot - Clément Venturini

Furthermore we should see a few other men participating in the sprint. Don't look towards non-sprinters to finish at the top though, as despite the wind, the stage continues to be perfectly flat. Marijn van den Berg, Axel Laurance, Paul Penhoët, Ivan García Cortina, Émilien Jeannière... Who knows, maybe even Wout van Aert.

*** Jonathan Milan, Jordi Meeus, Jasper Philipsen
** Tim Merlier, Soren Waerenskjold, Alberto Dainese
* Dylan Groenewegen, Biniam Girmay, Alberto Dainese, Jake Stewart, Pascal Ackermann, Phil Bauhaus, Arnaud De Lie, Arnaud Démare

Pick: Jonathan Milan

How: Regular bunch sprint