PREVIEW | Tour de France 2025 stage 19 - Tadej Pogacar faces FINAL mountain test towards 4th Tour victory

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 19.

The final high mountains day into La Plagne will feature five categorized climbs, but it will all come down to the final one. The Tour made the stage only 130 kilometers long so it's very short, but it will pack climbing from start to finish.

11.3 kilometers at 5.2% and then the Col de Saisies (13.8 kilometers at 6.4%) is quite a difficult combination of climbs to start the day off with and it could trigger a lot of interesting plot lines to the day early on.

The Col du Pré is the steepest climb of the day, it's final 7.6 kilometers averaging over 9% in gradient. This climb ends with 64 kilometers to go, and shortly after the peloton still climbs a bit of the Cormet de Roseland (51Km to go) before a very fast descent that leads into the final climb.

19 kilometers at over 7% will make for another gruesome GC challenge before the riders leave the mountains. The climb is as constant as it could be, but in such gradients it can make quite a lot of difference. At the end of such a week and race, this almost hour-long climb will prove to be a worthy final pure climber challenge.  

Grey and potentially wet day on the bike, but not something that will be extreme or likely even meaningful. The wind should come from the north, likely not too strong, but if it has any effect then it would overall be a cross or tailwind throughout the day's decisive climbs.

Tadej Pogacar - The race is won baring a full disaster or implosion on the final mountain day. This will, most likely, not happen. The Slovenian only has to remain consistent because within his normal power output, there's nothing that can be done against him. Can he go for the stage win? Certainly, but the truth is neither he or UAE needs it; but certainly they will push late in the day if they see that they have a free path into the final climb where the yellow jersey will no longer be at risk.

Jonas Vingegaard - The Dane gave it his all and put his cards on the table on stage 18. Can he still win the Tour? It's possible, but it's not dependent on him. Likely he will try to attack on the Col du Pré, or perhaps even go for it earlier since Visma don't have anything to lose, but if Pogacar is able to answer his first attack the team is likely to try and go for the stage win. I think Sepp Kuss has serious chances of achieving this from a breakaway whilst both Simon Yates and Matteo Jorgenson could also potentially go for it early in the day and then have their roles be fluid depending on the race in the peloton.

GC Fight - We should have a bit of a repetition today I would say. BORA had 2 minutes with both Roglic and Lipowitz out front today on Oscar Onley and they threw it all away. Now Onley is only 22 seconds away from the podium and white jersey of Lipowitz whilst he also won time on Roglic in the Col de la Loze. If BORA mess this up there will be a very bad few days and the Briton is showing only signs of improving somehow. Lipowitz has to go on the defensive in this stage and fully focus on Onley, no-one else, whilst I would say it would be favourable for the team to have Primoz Roglic attack again into the breakaway. Not only can he win the stage, but losing a 5th place to 6th or 7th would mean nothing, and if Lipowitz would crack then Roglic could realistically go through Onley.

In my head a very simple tactic and with the uphill start they should be able to do it, whilst Felix Gall is likely to try again as the Top10 spots are so distant and no-one is likely to chase him down, meaning a breakaway win is possible. The rest of the Top10 is likely to stay in the same format but even if there would be minor changes, everyone would be relatively happy.

Breakaway - On paper the two men above and Ben O'Connor are of course very good breakaway shots but it depends on if they give it a shot. The men who haven't won are more likely to give it a shot and succeed. Michael Storer, Sergio Higuita, Thymen Arensman, Santiago Buitrago, Frank van den Broek, Bruno Armirail and Ilan van Wilder are men to take into account, perhaps their final opportunity - not for all of them.

*** Tadej Pogacar, Felix Gall, Sepp Kuss
** Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic, Michael Storer
* Oscar Onley, Florian Lipowitz, Tobias Johannessen, Sergio Higuita, Santiago Buitrago, Frank van den Broek, Ilan van Wilder, Bruno Armirail, Matteo Jorgenson

Pick: Sepp Kuss

How: I think Visma will try to have him in the breakaway and with Vingegaard not dropping Pogacar, the American is going to be taking advantage of it and winning the stage.