Place Name: D 12
Address: D 12, 65120 Grust, France
Details: June 20, 2025
The Queen stage of this year's race from Pujaudran to Luz-Ardiden runs across 173KM and 3,700M of climbing and wouldn't be out place as a Tour de France stage. There are really only two climbs on the route, the Col du Tourmalet and the finish atop Luz-Ardiden. The first two-thirds of the race is mostly flat but with 65KM to go, the riders reach Bagnères-de-Bigorre where the road starts to rise all the way to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan where the mighty Col du Tourmalet begins. The famous mountain is 17KM long at an average of over 7%. After the 19KM descent into Luz-Saint-Sauveur, the final climb of Luz-Ardiden begins. It is 13.3KM long at 7.4% which should be more than enough to draw out a definitive winner of the race overall.
It was another gloriously warm day with not a single cloud to obstruct the sunshine. Five riders made the break including Sander de Pestel of Decathlon AG2R, Alex Díaz of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Jocelyn Baguelin and Johan Meens of Wagner-Bazin WB, and Kenny Molly of Van Rysel-Roubaix. At 65KM to go, gap was over 7 minutes with Arkéa-B&B Hotels setting the pace in the peloton. The views were stunning as the riders crossed the foothills through open fields of hay after the first cutting of the year with the peaks of the Hautes-Pyrénées in the background.
The break started the Col du Tourmalet with just over 52KM to go and a gap of 5 minutes 40 seconds. EF-Education EasyPost began to set the pace with 46KM to go and riders started to go out the back. Jardi Van Der Lee did the work for the team in pink and by the time they got to the first avalanche tunnel at 41.5KM to go, the gap was down to 90 seconds. The first lifting of the pace came about 1KM later from Burgos-Burpellet BH and the increase caused severe fracturing down the group. The favorites group was down to 7 riders through La Mongie, Cristián Rodríguez of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Davide Piganzoli and Alex Martín of Polti-VisitMalta, Alex Cepeda of EF-Education EasyPost, Steff Cras of TotalEnergies, Nicolas Prodhomme of Decathlon AG2R, and José Luis Faura of Burgos-Burpellet BH. They caught the break with 4KM to climb as Martín took over on the front. A few riders were able to haul their way back on to the group including Mikel Bizkarra of Euskatel-Euskadi, Sebastian Berwick and Jan Castellon of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, and Anton Schiffer of BIKEAID. Eric Antonio Fagúndez of Burgos-Burpellet BH got on right before Piganzoli led the group over the top.
Piganzoli attacked the descent and put pressure on the rest of the group. He took the entire descent off the front and was alone through Luz-Saint-Sauveur. He started Luz-Ardiden with a gap of 18 seconds to Rodríguez, Cepeda, Prodhomme, and Cras with the others chasing after losing contact on the descent. The first to crack from the chase group was Rodríguez, then Cepeda, all due to the pressure put on by Cras and Prodhomme. There were still over 10KM to climb and they had not made a dent in the gap to Piganzoli. With 7KM to go, through one of the more than 20 switchbacks, Cras and Prodhomme had closed the gap to Piganzoli to less than 20 seconds. The Italian was likely regretting his aggressive riding because the catch was made with 6.5KM to go and Prodhomme immediately went on the attack. Piganzoli tried to respond but he went into the red and with 5.7KM to go, Prodhomme had 20 seconds and was romping up the climb.
The Frenchman continued his effort the whole way to the line and when he crossed as the winner, he had put in nearly 2 minutes to the next closest rider. Piganzoli recovered and was able to attack Cras and come across the finish in second place, 1minute 53 seconds behind. Cras was next in at 2 minutes 26 seconds.
The GC was always going to be heavily shaped by today's stage and the top three on the day now sit in the same order overall. Prodhomme is 2 minutes 7 seconds up on Piganzoli and 2 minutes 27 seconds Cras with one day remaining.
Tags: La Route d'Occitanie, 2025, June, Stage 3, La Route d'Occitanie 2025, Pujaudran, Luz-Ardiden, Sander de Pestel, Alex Díaz, Jocelyn Baguelin, Johan Meens, Kenny Molly, Jardi Van Der Lee, Cristián Rodríguez, Davide Piganzoli, Alex Martín, Alex Cepeda, Steff Cras, Nicolas Prodhomme, José Luis Faura, Mikel Bizkarra, Sebastian Berwick, Jan Castellon, Anton Schiffer, Eric Antonio Fagúndez