Place Name: Rue De La Pépinette
Address: Rue De La Pépinette 1, 6950 Nassogne, Luxembourg, Belgium
Details: July 26, 2025
The Ethias-Tour de Wallonie kicks off with 182KM around the town of Nassogne. As with all the stages this week, there is almost no flat road. As with most of the stage maps this week, the course for Stage 1 is a series on concentric circles with the largest coming first, through La Roche-en-Ardenne and back around to Marche-en-Famenne and Rochefort. The final 5KM is all uphill but at 4%, it should be shallow enough to produce a reduced bunch sprint. There are three intermediate sprints each day with bonus seconds of (3,2,1) and bonus seconds at the finish (10,6,4) could decide the race. Last year, Corbin Strong and Matteo Trentin were tied on time after the final stage and the organizers had to use the average stage finishes of each rider to determine that Trentin was the winner.
Five riders went from the gun including Nicolas Milesi Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Ludovic Robeet of Cofidis, Jordy Decottignies of Tarteletto-Isorex, Kenay De Moyer of Pauwels Sauzen-Cibel Clementines, and Kenneth Van Rooy of Wagner-Bazin WB. Israel-Premier Tech, Lidl-Trek, and Alpecin-Deceuninck were working together to hold the break at just over 2 minutes with 94KM to go. Van Rooy went out for the KOM on top of the Côte du Fourneau Saint-Michel with 70KM. He was followed by De Moyer and the pair continued over the top. The group came back together but they were not working as well together as before. Even with the uneven distribution work, the gap was still 90 seconds with 44KM to go as they started the Côte de la Barrière de Champlon.
Decottignies and Van Rooy were dropped on the climb as Robeet took to the front and rode a hard pace. De Moyer was popped right before the top leaving just Robeet and Milesi off the front with 33KM to go. The bunch changed temperament with 25KM to go as all of the teams got into color order and pushed to the front covering every inch of the road. Milesi couldn't handle the pace put on by Robeet and dropped away just before the final intermediate sprint with 19KM to go. Robeet's lead was around 40 seconds but the peloton was barring down on the 10KM pedaling descent down to Forrières and the final climb to the finish.
Robeet did a sterling job but he was caught with 3KM to go. Movistar, Ineos, and Israel-Premier Tech each took turns with their trains on the front but the road was constantly going up at 3-5% making it nearly impossible to maintain control. There was almost no organization from 2 to 1KM to go. The speed went out, giving riders in the back a chance to move up which made the front a very crowded place to be. Jayco AlUla picked it up with 700M to go but there were no teammates in the line and it seemed like every man for themselves. Rasmus Tiller of Uno-X Mobility started the sprint at 200M with Oliver Knight of Cofidis and Corbin Strong of Israel-Premier Tech on his wheel. It was too far for the Norwegian but the distance almost didn't matter because when Strong accelerated, he was gone. Strong lifted the pace of his sprint and was head and shoulders above everyone else. He crossed the line with at least three bike lengths back to Tiller. Anders Foldager of Jayco AlUla took third with Knight holding on for fourth.
Tags: Tour de Wallonie, 2025, July, Stage 1, Tour de Wallonie 2025, Nassogne, Nicolas Milesi, Ludovic Robeet, Jordy Decottignies, Kenay De Moyer, Kenneth Van Rooy, Rasmus Tiller, Oliver Knight, Corbin Strong, Anders Foldager