Leaders and favorites of each team for the Tour de France 2025

The next Saturday, July 5, a Tour de France 2025 will start in Lille where all the attention seems to be focused on the battle between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard for the final victory in Paris. However, other 184 cyclists spread among the 23 participating teams will take part in the race, each with their own mission. Let's review the aspirations of these other names.

These will be the animators of the Tour de France 2025

Beyond the final victory in the Tour de France 2025, an objective that seems reserved only for Tadej Pocagar from UAE Team Emirates-XRG, or for Jonas Vingegaard with the support of Visma-Lease a Bike, with the permission of the role that Remco Evenepoel may play, who does not have as strong support as his rivals in the lineup prepared for him by Soudal-QuickStep, nor seems to be, based on what happened in Dauphiné, at the same level as them, there are 281 other cyclists in the peloton that will start in Lille who will try to achieve their particular objectives.

These objectives, in a grand tour, range from supporting their leaders to trying to win stages, whether in breakaways or sprints, winning in one of the secondary classifications, achieving a place of honor in the general classification, or simply showing themselves as combative as possible to give the greatest visibility to their sponsor.

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Regarding the fight to break into the Top10 of the general classification, we find a large group of cyclists who may have the necessary consistency to achieve it, starting with Pogacar's teammates like Joao Almeida or Adam Yates, as well as from Jonas Vingegaard with names like Matteo Jorgenson or Simon Yates.

A Top10 position that, if no mishap occurs like the ones that left him out of the Giro d'Italia, should be achievable for Primoz Roglic who will try to make up for the disappointment of the Italian race and, at the same time, straighten out a season that does not justify the huge budget of Red Bull-BORA-hasngrohe.

A similar situation to that of INEOS-Grenadiers, although, in their case, the British team has changed its philosophy to be more combative and fight for other objectives such as stage victories. In any case, it seems like a small reward for a team of their caliber, so they will try to place Carlos Rodríguez, who has been completely overshadowed since the collarbone fracture he suffered at the beginning of the season, in the top positions of the race.

In this review of teams that have declined, it is necessary to mention Movistar Team, which has good riders to achieve some partial victories with Pablo Castrillo or the reigning Spanish Champion, Iván Romeo, while Enric Mas will try to be as high as possible, no longer having a real aspiration to podium places.

Another cyclist who should aim for a good general classification, in this case for Jayco-AlUla, is Ben O'Connor despite a tremendously discreet year with a 7th place in the general classification of the recently disputed Tour of Switzerland as his best result.

Beyond the general classification, many teams aim to win stages, whether in mass sprints, for which they will have many opportunities, or in different options of tough profile stages that could be resolved in breakaways.

In the case of sprints, Tim Merlier from Soudal-QuickStep, Jasper Philipsen for Alpecin-Deceuninck, Dylan Groenewegen with the colors of Jayco-AlUla, and Jonathna Milan for Lidl-Trek should be the main animators of the sprints. On the other hand, breakaways usually require a much more refined form, and in the end, due to natural selection, the same members of the breakaways tend to repeat as the Tour de France progresses.

However, looking at the list of participants, on paper there are a few names that we will surely see active day after day. We are talking about cyclists like Ben Healy, especially after the last-minute withdrawal of Richard Carapaz due to illness, leaving EF Education-EasyPost orphaned in terms of the general classification; Alex Aramburu and Ion Izagirre seeking to give visibility to Cofidis; a Thibau Nys making his Tour de France debut with Lidl-Trek and, why not, seeking to justify Tudor's invitation to the race, we will surely see a particularly active Julian Alaphilippe.

Also in terms of partial victories, we are left wondering about the role that Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel will play. The Belgian, like in the Giro d'Italia, arrives after being ill, which prevented him from participating in the national championship. On the other hand, Van der Poel has treated the last Tour de France as mere training, appearing only to lead his teammate Jasper Philipsen, so it is difficult to predict what to expect from them.

In any case, all the cyclists in the peloton are actors in a great film called Tour de France, and they all play their part in such a production to offer the viewer what is each year one of the greatest spectacles that this exciting sport of cycling can provide.