The 2025 Tour de France continued Sunday with stage 15 – a 169.3-kilometer ride on a route from Muret to Carcassonne. The stage will be contested in hilly and somewhat mountainous terrain and the profile appeals to breakaway optimists, while the GC favorites will likely prioritize recovering their strength after three hard mountain stages and before the final week of this year’s Tour de France.

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) remained general classification leader after yesterday’s stage 14, which had featured Col du Tourmalet, Col d’Aspin and Col de Peyresourde. While Thymen Arensman had bravely won the stage for Ineos-Grenadiers-TotalEnergies, Pogacar had battled with Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) on the final climb, but not at one hundred percent intensity. Soudal-QuickStep captain Remco Evenepoel had sadly abandoned the race during the stage, while Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek had crashed heavily and been forced out.

Vingegaard had sent his lieutenants into breakaways in yesterday’s stage, and they should likely have been used as front posts for the team captain, though Vingegaard himself chose not to engage in a long attack, which could have resulted in a significant time gain. It was possibly the rainy racing conditions, which caused the Dane to abandon his plans. One can speculate if a rider can still be a real Tour de France champion contender, if he cannot ride with necessary risk in mountain territory and will cancel plans due to rain.

Today’s stage 15 got off to a fast start after the Tour peloton had left the town of Muret. Several teams were on a mission in today’s stage. Some wanted to win the stage from a long breakaway, some wanted the stage to conclude in a mass sprint, while others were focusing on new opportunities in the GC after Evenepoel and Skjelmose had abandoned the race.

American Neilson Powless launched a solo breakaway with 163 kilometers remaining and the EF Education-EasyPost rider established a small gap while riding in a very determined way.

Yevgeniy Fedorov tried to bridge the gap but failed. Tobias Foss of Ineos-Grenadiers-TotalEnergies launched an attempt and was joined by Fedorov and Alexey Lutsenko. At this point Powless had an advantage of 32 seconds over the main peloton, while Foss and his two Kazakh followers were eleven seconds behind him.

A crash occurred in the main peloton when riders hit some road furniture. The crash brought down several riders, including Julian Alaphilippe, who appeared to be suffering with pain in his right arm and shoulder, which could indicate a collarbone fracture. The peloton split into multiple groups and some riders – including GC favorites – had to be brought back while receiving pace from their team cars. Major riders such as Jonas Vingegaard, Florian Lipowitz, and Biniam Girmay were lagging.

146 kilometers remained, the main peloton had been split into atoms, while Powless, Foss and other riders were still struggling to establish a viable breakaway from a twenty-man group, which was in front. A new main peloton group was being established, which was spearheaded by riders from Team Visma-Lease a Bike. Pogacar was telling all riders to wait as he obviously didn’t have any interest in shaking the tree and risking his GC top position. Would the other teams take the bait?

A front group featured Victor Campenaerts, Powless, Matej Mohoric, Clement Russo, Kaden Groves, Mathieu van der Poel, Matteo Vercher, Alexey Lutsenko, Arnaud de Lie, Jake Stewart, Tobias Lund Andresen, Wout van Aert, Tim Wellens, Pascal Eenkhoorn, and Jarrad Drizners. 

The front breakaway group had a lead of 35 seconds over the main peloton, which featured Pogacar. 130 kilometers remained. With the GC peloton group waiting for the other riders, chase groups quickly joined the peloton from behind while being assisted in their efforts by cars. The behavior was certainly not honoring the Tour de France, known as the world’s greatest cycling race and it also made the race less interesting and watch-worthy for fans as changes to the general classification were being artificially prevented and neutralized.

The collective safety behavior and collective avoidance behavior associated with always waiting for other riders was a result of the collective underlying anxiety, which had sadly infected the cycling peloton of modern times.

Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Victor Campenaerts were looking very strong in the breakaway group and perhaps the day could result in a memorable stage victory for one of the famous cyclists. The breakaway group continued to increase its advantage and was 45 seconds ahead of the chasing peloton wth 120 kilometers left to race before the riders would reach the finish line in Carcassonne, where riders such as Mark Cavendish and Magnus Cort had won stages in previous Tours.

Ineos-Grenadiers initiated a chase, and the team was eager to get a rider into the breakaway after the team’s success in yesterday’s stage. Axel Laurance then launched a solo attempt hoping to bridge the gap.

Mathieu van der Poel won the intermediate sprint from the breakaway group and the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider secured more points for the points classification. Meanwhile, Laurance’s attempt failed.

Attacks from the main peloton were launched on Cote de Saint-Ferreol. Riders including Quinn Simmons, Florian Lipowitz, Michael Storer, and Matteo Jorgenson were active, and all GC favorites had to remain fully attentive.

The front breakaway group approached Cote de Soreze with a gap of twenty seconds to the main peloton group. 

Additional riders bridged the gap to the front breakaway group and Quinn Simmons, Michael Storer, Mohoric, Powless, Campenaerts, and Wellens formed a new front group on the climb, with Van Aert and other chasers thirty seconds behind them. New strong riders had joined the chase group, including Carlos Rodriguez, Oscar Onley, Santiago Buitrago, Guillaume Martin, Michael Valgren, and Jasper Stuyven.

The main peloton was one minute behind the six-man front group, while being spearheaded by riders from UAE Team Emirates with Pogacar clearly visible near the front and Jonas Vingegaard monitoring him. Carlos Rodriguez of team Ineos-Grenadiers-TotalEnergies was displeased with the speed in the chase group and initiated a solo attack while hoping to join the front sextet.

Rodriguez joined the front sextet, which was approaching the summit of Cote de Soreze. Eighty kilometers of the stage remained. The riders entered the fast and winding descent and Lutsenko joined the group from behind.

The eight front riders were joined by Andreas Leknessund and the nine frontmen approached the Pas du Sant climb, which was a challenging Category 2 climb with incline percentages of more than ten percent. However, the first chasers were just nineteen seconds behind, while the main peloton was approximately 03:30 minutes back.

Michael Storer attacked with Quinn Simmons early on the climb. Campenaerts was trying to join the front duo together with Wellens. Powless, Rodriguez, Vlasov, Barguil, and Lutsenko were further back on the climb.

Storer of Tudor Pro Cycling Team tried to leave Wellens, Campenaerts, and Simmons behind as he approached the summit of the climb, but the other riders were too strong. Powless and Barguil were forming a chase duo.

Powless got dropped from the chase group and it appeared the American rider from Team EF Education-EasyPost had spent too much energy in the initial phase of today’s stage as he initiated the first breakaway and stayed alone in front for several kilometers before being joined by other attackers.

Eight riders joined forces at the front of the race on the uncategorized mountain stretch of Col du Fontbruno that followed. Tim Wellens then launched an attack with 43 kilometers of the stage remaining. The Belgian rider opened a gap, and Simmons attempted to close the gap, but failed. Campenaerts, Vlasov, Simmons, Storer, and Barguil were now chasing fourteen seconds behind on the downhill stretch.

Belgian national champion Wellens continued to deliver an impressive performance as he approached the finish town of Carcassonne. The rider from UAE Team Emirates had increased his lead to more than a minute when twenty-eight kilometers remained while the downhill terrain was to his advantage. Campenaerts was in the first chase group with Vlasov, Simmons, Storer and Barguil.

Wellens had raced at an average pace of 45.9 kilometers per hour in the stage so far. The Belgian rider continued to make his home nation proud when he extended his lead while getting closer to the finish line.

Wout van Aert and Ivan Romeo attacked from one of the chase groups but were more than two minutes behind when fourteen kilometers remained. Campenaerts, Rodriguez, Vlasov, Simmons, Storer, Barguil and Lutsenko were the closest chasers, but 01:33 minutes behind.

Quinn Simmons launched an attack from the first chase group but was 01:47 minutes behind with four kilometers left of the stage. Simmons got reeled in and Campenaerts counterattacked.

Tim Wellens crossed Canal du Midi, entered Carcassonne solo and crossed the finish line as winner of stage 15 after an impressive solo performance in the stage finale. What a memorable victory for the people of Belgium and UAE Team Emirates. Victor Campenaerts finished second for his Visma-Lease a Bike team after a very motivated and persistent performance. Julian Alaphilippe completed the stage podium by winning a sprint from a small group though the Frenchman thought he had won the stage and certainly deserves to win a race again soon. Wout van Aert finished fourth and Axel Laurance fifth.

Tadej Pogacar remains general classification leader following today’s stage. Jonas Vingegaard is 04:13 minutes behind in second place, while Florian Lipowitz jumped to third place, now 07:53 behind the leader. Oscar Onley is fourth in the GC, Kevin Vauquelin is fifth, while Primoz Roglic is sixth, and Feliz Gall seventh. Ben Healy is ninth, while Carlos Rodriguez completes the GC top ten.

Monday will be the second rest day of this year’s Tour. The Tour de France will continue Tuesday with stage 16 – a 169.3-kilometer ride on a route from Montpellier to Mont Ventoux. Much will be decided on the legendary climb where Tommy Simpson tragically lost his life.

Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for complete coverage from the 2025 Tour de France.