Tour de France 2025 Stage 15

July 20, 2025 The 169KM route to the walled city of Carcassonne is an interesting one. The stage starts in Muret in the Haute-Garonne, not far from the finish in Toulouse on stage 11 and still firmly in cassolette country. The riders head directly East on mostly flat to gently rolling roads for 60KM to the intermediate sprint in Saint-Félix-Lauragais. There are two category 2 climbs in the next 30KM before a long descent through the heart of the Tarn. The final climb of the day is the Pas du Sant, a 3KM category 2 climb at 9%. It becomes the Col de Fontbruno and actually continues on for over 10KM at 4%. The top comes 42KM from Carcassonne and the remainder is all downhill until the final 8KM of flat road leading to the finish. The sprinters are unlikely to make it to the finish so the start will be very active with riders trying to make the break. Summer returned as the race moved out of the mountains. Neilson Powless of EF-Education EasyPost was an early attacker and got away alone with 162KM to go. A crash in Auterive 9KM later brought down a number of riders right as they entered a bridge over the Ariège river. The crash caused a few splits in the group and there were riders spread everywhere. Third overall, Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, was one and the team dropped all their riders back to drag him forward. Powless sat out in front for nearly 15KM when the front of the peloton came across but because of the crash, it was only around 25 riders. The GC riders caught out were all able to rejoin the front of the peloton after about 20KM of chasing. During the chase, a high powered group broke away off the front of the race consisting of 15 riders. When the peloton got organized, Ineos started chasing with Lidl-Trek who wanted to bring it back before the intermediate sprint and the speed went way up. With the help of a cross-tail wind, the bunch split into three parts under the pressure but they still could not make a dent in the 40 second advantage of the break. Kévin Vauquelin of Arkéa-B&B Hotels missed the split but his group made it back to the favorites with 110KM to go. Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck made the break and took the intermediate sprint to add 20 points to his tally, keeping him mathematically in the hunt for the Green Jersey. Axel Laurance of Ineos tried to jump across to the break but it was 15 seconds too far and he had to settle back into the peloton. Tudor Pro Cycling wasn't happy with the composition of the break and lit up the first categorized climb with 97KM to go. They brought the gap to the break down to 20 seconds and Michael Storer attacked but all of the GC guys were following because the race had been so hard. Storer finally broke clear with Quinn Simmons and Jasper Stuyven of Lidl-Trek. They made it up to the front with 92KM to go but the extra riders disrupted the cohesion and the group started to split again. The break started the 6KM Côte de Sorèze with 89KM to go and a front group formed with Simmons, Powless, Storer, Matej Mohorič of Bahrain Victorious, Alexey Lutsenko of Israel-Premier Tech, Tim Wellens of UAE-XRG, and Victor Campenaerts of Visma Lease a Bike. The rest of the break of around 25 riders was 47 seconds behind with 4KM still to climb. Lutsenko led the group over the top just as Carlos Rodríguez of Ineos made a strong effort to bridge up and made contact. The chasers were 40 seconds behind with the main peloton at 2 minutes 25 seconds. With 65KM to go, the chase group broke apart. Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility attacked and bridged 40 seconds to the front group. Aleksandr Vlasov of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Warren Barguil of Picnic-PostNL were the next to join the front group to make 11 riders with 56KM to go at the start of the Pas du Sant climb. Storer attacked from the bottom when the road ramped up to 10%. Simmons was able to follow and the were joined by Campenaerts and Wellens. Storer didn't want company however and attacked again with 700M to climb but Simmons, Campenaerts, and Wellens were back on the wheel by the KOM point. Wellens was sitting on and really disrupting the group. Storer was getting frustrated and Simmons gave some words to Wellens as well. The front group doubled in size to eight as Vlasov, Rodríguez, Barguil, and Lutsenko rejoined with 44KM to go. Wellens immediately attacked. Barguil almost made contact as did Simmons but Wellens was fully committed and pulled out a 15 second gap. Over the dam across the Lac de Laprade Basse with 35KM to go, Wellens had increased his margin to 37 seconds over Campenaerts, Vlasov, Simmons, Storer, and Barguil and he was only extending the lead. The chasers seemed to get organized but Lutsenko and Rodríguez were able to make their way back and with 20KM to go, Wellens had 90 seconds. The chase group tried and tried but they could not close the gap. Wellens completed a 43KM solo attack for his first stage win at the Tour de France. The win puts him in the prestigious club of 113 riders who have won a stage in each of the three Grand Tours. Second place was all the chase group could fight for so they began attacking each relentlessly. Each rider had at least one attempt to go away alone but they were so evenly matched that the group was still together with 2KM to go. Campenaerts finally got a gap 1,700M from the finish and time trialed to the line to take second place. The rest of the chase were caught by other riders from the original break to make over 20 riders coming to the finish for third place. Julian Alaphilippe of Tudor Pro Cycling won the sprint for third but unfortunately celebrated like he had won the stage. The GC largely remained unchanged with the exception of Carlos Rodríguez. His presence in the break jumped him over Ben Healy to move into 9th overall by just 15 seconds.