Is the Tour over?

The manifest superiority shown by Tadej Pogacar throughout the mountain stages of the Pyrenees that have been the focus of attention in the second week of the Tour de France makes many wonder if it is worth continuing to pay attention to the race and if we will see anything interesting in the last 6 stages remaining until Paris.

Don't leave yet, there's still more Tour de France

Obviously, this is a doubt that arises among those who follow road cycling punctually and focus solely on the big names in the general classification. If we look back at the two weeks that have been played, we see that except for a couple of flat stages in the first third of the race, absolutely all stages have offered an intense struggle: to look for breakaways, for the stage victory, for the green jersey and the polka dot jersey, and also among the general classification riders even though, after the passage through the Pyrenees, everything seems settled.

And no, we're not going to deceive you with the typical thing that is usually said: until the last finish line is crossed, nothing is decided, anyone can have a bad day, there is still a lot of mountain... Those who follow and regularly practice road cycling know that one of the maxims of this sport is that the road puts everyone in their place. It is true that in certain occasions tactics make it so that the, a priori, strongest rider doesn't win, but in a three-week race the physical form of each rider determines where they will be.

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This is very clear in the classification of the last mountain stage that finished in Superbagneres and how the order of arrival is almost identical to the general classification. What we mean by this is that Tadej Pogacar is undoubtedly the strongest, he has shown to have a solid team to support him despite the loss of Joao Almeida and with the comfortable time cushion he enjoys in the general classification and with a history of being a tremendously effective cyclist who hardly has bad days, it is highly unlikely that at least physically he could have a bad day that would spice up the race again.

It is true that no rider is exempt from falling, however, being the strongest and having the best team is also key, as we saw in yesterday's stage, to prevent this from happening. It is much less likely to fall when you choose the pace to descend, always ride at the front of the peloton, and have your team surrounding and protecting you. This can also be applied to, for example, a situation with crosswinds like the ones that could occur in tomorrow's stage towards Mont Ventoux.

In any case, despite it being a cliché, as long as there are stages, there will be opportunities for something to happen that turns the race around and, in this aspect, Visma-Lease a Bike has made a tremendously ambitious proposal to toughen up the race from the first day even though it hasn't been successful, generating fatigue seemed to be the option to try to defeat Tadej Pogacar, the same tactic with which they managed to beat him three years ago on the way to Col du Granon.

If the first and second positions in the general classification seem quite clarified, the same does not happen with the third step of the podium, currently occupied by Florian Lipowitz but the differences in the general classification are not very wide between him and his teammate Primoz Roglic who is in sixth place in the general classification with Oscar Onley and Kevin Vauquelin intercalated between them. Against the young German is the fact that he is facing his first Tour de France and it is not uncommon for newcomers to find the third week challenging.

And it is worth noting that there is still an authentically brutal last week ahead, starting with Mont Ventoux, a single-climb stage but which surely has a good dose of nervousness in a completely flat first part through the fields of Provence, where the fearsome Mistral wind usually makes its appearance. If it doesn't, the extreme toughness of Mont Ventoux itself, especially at this stage of the race, is enough to leave the race shattered.

Last chance for the sprinters after that, and then two totally monumental alpine stages, the first of them with a finish at Col de la Loze, a place of fond memories for Jonas Vingegaard, one of the last places where Tadej Pogacar was seen faltering. The next day, La Plagne, the summit where we witnessed what was probably Miguel Indurain's greatest mountain performance and, we are sure, Tadej Pogacar, determined to leave his mark on this sport, will not miss the opportunity to do something similar. Just as we have no doubts that the Slovenian will try to win the atypical stage in Paris that this year adopts part of the route of last summer's Olympic race.

If watching what these mountain stages may bring us is not enough, there are other incentives that may invite us to follow the Tour de France this last week. Firstly, the agonizing pursuit of the green jersey that Mathieu van der Poel has started and that will force him to score in the Intermediate Sprint almost every day and hope that Pogacar and Jonathan Milan do not do the same. Something similar happens to a determined Lenny Martinez in regards to the mountain classification where Tadej Pogacar is chasing him.

In any case, with the precedents of these two exciting weeks that have been played, it is most likely that the riders in this Tour de France 2025 peloton will continue to not allow us to take a nap during those moments when we set the alarm to watch the last 10 km of the stage, as all of them have been developing in a tremendously intense way and it doesn't seem like that competitiveness will disappear from here to Paris.