PREVIEW | Tour de la Provence 2025 - Lidl-Trek chasing win with Pedersen and Skujins
Cycling
From the 14th of the 16th of February the racing in France continues with another prestigious stage-race. In the south of the country, the Tour de la Provence will provide good opportunities for the sprinters and classics riders to work on their form and fight for stage wins. We preview the race ahead.
The first day of the race is coincidentally the hardest and one that is very difficult to control. The riders begin to tackle climbs right from kilometer 0 and until the finish it's a constant roller-coaster of a day.
There will be 2600 meters of climbing and the first half of the stage mainly is very hard. Without a race leader at the same time, it is expected that there will be a big fight to be in the breakaway and this will include some of the strongest riders in the race. This is because there will be a downhill trend to the final half of the day, with several small climbs... Putting on a chase will be hard and bringing back attackers will be a very difficult task.
Stage 2 of the race is perhaps more controlled, but also not an easy day by any means. The sprinters should have the spotlight, but they will need good climbing legs to win on the day. The 167-kilometer stage features a few small climbs towards the end that provide opportunities for attacks and changes in the overall classification.
However, if there are good sprinters with good legs on the day, there should be teams with enough interest to sacrifice plenty riders for a chase, before the finale into Manosque. It will be a tricky uphill sprint, averaging 4% in the final kilometer, which could see some puncheurs also getting in the mix - with both stage and GC interests.
The final day of the race is the easiest and the one where a bunch sprint seems inevitable. The race rewards the pure sprinters with a golden opportunity on the final day. At the end of the 190 kilometers, the sprinters will battle on as the race finishes in Arles.
Prediction Tour de la Provence 2025 overall classification:
*** Mads Pedersen, Toms Skujins
** Matej Mohoric, Marijn van den Berg
* Bauke Molema, Fred Wright, Dorian Godon, Samuele Battistella, Ewen Costiou
Pick: Mads Pedersen
Original: Rúben Silva
Just in
Play for FREE! Fantasy Tour of Flanders
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- Powless just got “better” at 28, Rog hasn’t gotten worse at 35, GT only really started getting going in GT late twenties. Give the guy a chance, he’s not even been let off the leash yet, remember what Jonas achieved GT wise since being given leader status.Mistermaumau03-04-2025
- Jorgenson turns 26 this year, he won't get much bettervappaxbipmv02-04-2025
- i completely agree. wouter has been through a meat grinder. he’s such a class act, a man of such character that he would never complain or make excuses, that’s why it’s so infuriating to hear him spoken about as if he was failing, choking, or in any way not fulfilling what’s expected of him. i get it, he’s a PRO, so part of what he gets paid for is to be a target for anyone with an opinion. fair enough. MY opinion is that he needs TIME to overcome a pile of injuries. i hope he gets there, because he deserves a pile of wins.OCexile02-04-2025
- I just went through the list of events in his recent riding history listed in another article (so not including his very expensive legal affair and any potential trouble at home) and it’s a half miracle he’s still riding at all. He's outfallen Roglič for sure, who always came away RELATIVELY unharmed.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- ugh. slice and dice this any way you like. if you’re one of the belgians TRYING to believe wout is going to be in the fight at de ronde and roubaix, this is an ice cold dose of reality. my opinion is that nobody — ESPECIALLY his own team — should have been fanning any expectations of wout at this point after what he’s endured.OCexile02-04-2025
- I guess when you’re high, you don’t (need to) focus on anything ;-)Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- True but things also change, Primoz will get older, Remco crashes, MJ isn’t peaking yet and people can improve their weaknesses faster than others improve their strengths, cf MVDP climbing, JV TTing.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Sorry, yeah doesn’t look great but it seems all the recent context gets completely ignored in order to make a big story out of this. Honestly, did anyone at this point really expect Wout to suddenly have recovered all his missing form? Respect to Powless but he’s no nobody, his 2022-2023 presaged something like this. Yes they messed up but it also nearly worked, impossible to know how good your opponent is going to be in such a situation unkess it’s an in form Pog or MVDP. I’d not see this as a disaster but a really bad call, there are positives, they distanced a very strong 2nd group (Mads might be saving himself though) and Wout was very close to a place he’s not heen in a long time. I’d call that progress. Only a few meters would have led to completely different headlines. Why make everything so boack and white? Wout obviously understands and it is in part everyone putting all that pressure on him that led to him making a bad call. That said, had he let his mates go for the win (no guarantee either) héd have received different criticism.Mistermaumau02-04-2025
- Pogi is just had 9 days of racing.
James2631802-04-2025 - I’d advise doing brain scans during max efforts, you never know, he may be having micro blackouts without realising it at the time and with a crash you tend not to remember it after either. Like when you nod off a split second while driving, or realise you can’t remember any details from the last few km.Mistermaumau02-04-2025