Preview, profiles, route, favourites and stages Deutschland Tour 2025 - Wout van Aert and UAE headline German race

From the 20th to the 24th of August, the German calendar continues, this time around with the country's most important stage race of the year: The Deutschland Tour. We take a look at its stages, the profiles and route, and preview the race ahead, including its favourites.

The race features five stages, with no mountains included this year. The general classification battle will open up on the first day with a prologue and the riders will then have two pure sprint stages and two hilly days where some differences can be made. But the race's GC could be decided in a matter of a few bonus seconds, so the entirety of the stages can be very important for it's outcome.

The race begins in Essen with a short prologue of 3 kilometers in length. It's not going to be a difficult challenge and it won't be a technical prologue either, but it will create an order in the GC and provide a few specialists with a rare opportunity to perform.

202 kilometers on the menu in this first road stage of the race, starting in Essen and with long flat roads to be tackled before the riders enter the most hilly section of the stage. However it's very difficult not to see a bunch sprint at the end of this stage, even if not all of the fast men will have the ability to arrive with their best legs to that point in the race.

There's a bonus sprint with 6 kilometers to go at the top of a small climb, not one where you can make serious differences, but we can see a few gaps that can be interesting for the outcome of the day.

Stage 2 of the race can be termed the queen stage, a day for the classics specialists. The 189 kilometers between Herford and Neheim will have no long climbs but many short and punchy ascents where it's possible to make the difference and make the race very tactical.

From 65 to 31 kilometers to go there will be five small climbs where this action can take place, and a few groups may go up the road. Afterwards it's not pan-flat all the way to the finish but there is a bonus sprint at the top of a small hill where we may see some more attacks or sprints to obtain key seconds.

A few climbs to be tackled on this fourth day of racing in Germany, it's definitely not easy to make the difference but the hilly terrain early in the day create the opportunity for a strong breakaway to be formed and in a race of this length and difficulty, any breakaway could end up delivering a big GC result.

From Neheim to Kassel the sprinters are still expected to be at the forefront but there is terrain for a secondary plot to the day. With only 3 kilometers to go there is a small rise on the road culminating with a bonus sprint which should be attacked. And due to the downhill nature of the finale attacks here could even succeed. But if not, we still have a slight uphill sprint that should be quite exciting to tackle.

The race finishes off with another stage that does not feature any important differences. It's a day for the sprinters, with 161 kilometers separating the cities of Halle and Magdeburg.

The riders will be having a small ascent early in the day but all the action will be saved for the final kilometers, where a bonus sprint may still kick off some action, but a bunch sprint is expected at the finish line.

*** Soren Waerenskjold, Kaden Groves,
** Wout van Aert, Matthew Brennan, Brandon McNulty
* Jonathan Milan, Andreas Kron, Alexey Lutsenko, Iván Romeo, Florian Lipowitz, Danny van Poppel, Mattia Cattaneo, Maikel Zijlaard, Axel Laurance, Jan Christen, Jhonatan Narváez

Pick: Kaden Groves