Key Takeaways: Tour de France Stage 14

Breaking down what we learned on a quintessentially tough, miserable day through the Pyrenees during the 2025 Tour de France

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Surrounded by the misty peaks of the rugged and lush Pyrenees mountains, Ineos’ Thymen Arensman produced the ride of his career to take a defiant solo victory atop the historic Superbagnères climb on Stage 14 of the 2025 Tour de France. Behind, Tadej Pogačar continued to stamp his authority on the General Classification, riding in the wheel of his now-dominant-looking UAE team and easily parrying Jonas Vingegaard’s late attack as he tightened his grip on the Yellow Jersey. Meanwhile, Vingegaard was left isolated, outgunned, and without support from his Visma teammates. Outside of the slight time gaps at the finish line, the major GC story of the day was the abandonment of Remco Evenepoel, who climbed off shortly after being dropped on the first climb of the day, the mighty Tourmalet, which officially opens up the final podium spot to one of the race’s handful of breakout young stars.

Stage Top Five:
1) Thymen Arensman (NED, Ineos Grenadiers) +0
2) Tadej Pogačar (SLO, UAE Team Emirates‑XRG) +1’08
3) Jonas Vingegaard (DEN, Visma‑Lease a Bike) +1’12
4) Felix Gall (AUT, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +1’19
5) Florian Lipowitz (GER, Red Bull‑Bora‑Hansgrohe) +1’25

Current GC Top Five:
1) Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) +0
2) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +4’13
3) Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull – Bora – Hansgrohe) +7’53
4) Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) +9’18
5) Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) +10’21

Points Classification
1) Jonathan Milan (ITA, Lidl‑Trek)-251 pts
2) Tadej Pogačar (SLO, UAE Team Emirates‑XRG)–223 pts
3) Mathieu van der Poel (NED, Alpecin‑Deceuninck)–190 pts

Stage 14 Race Notebook

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112.3km-to-go: After an unsuccessful battle for the breakaway that created an extremely fast opening 70 kilometers, Jonathan Milan sprints to pick up maximum points at the intermediate sprint, with Mathieu van der Poel signaling his intent to challenge in the competition by coming in second, and Pogačar likely unintentionally picking up three points, which could be important, back in the peloton.

110.6km-107.7km: As soon as the peloton gets through the sprint point and hits the lower slopes of the Tourmalet, UAE (taking over from a strange appearance from Tudor at the front), sets a hard early pace (perhaps to deter GC contenders from getting into the breakaway), immediately dropping Remco Evenepoel, who gets off the bike and abandons the race shortly after.

106.1km: Eventually, Lenny Martinez rides off the front, with Ineos’ Thymen Arensman right on his wheel.

96km: After a few other groups bridge across, a strong breakaway group, including two Visma riders (Sepp Kuss and Simon Yates), UAE sends Nils Politt to the front to set a brisk pace that keeps the gap to the breakaway around three minutes, seemingly suggesting that Pogačar wants to contest the stage win.

60km: Once over the Tourmalet and getting ready to descend the wet and cold Col d’Aspin, UAE is still on the front, with the gap to the leader, Lenny Martinez, at 3.5 minutes.

36.8km: When the peloton hits the slopes of the Peyresourde (where yesterday’s TT took place), UAE, despite its pacesetting, has four riders alongside Tadej Pogačar at the front, while Visma, due to losing Matteo Jorgenson and sending multiple riders up the road, only has two riders alongside their leader.

36.2km: Arensman, after bridging across to Martinez with a group, accelerates and leaves the group, heading over the top of the Peyresourde with an impressive gap of over a minute to the chase and 3’22 to the peloton.

7.4km: Roughly halfway up the final climb of Superbagnères, Arensman still has a gap of nearly three minutes. Felix Gall attacks from the GC group, which is still being led by UAE (Adam Yates), who still has two riders with Pogačar, while Vingegaard is isolated.

3.2km: Jonas Vingegaard attacks, but is easily followed by Pogačar, with Florian Lipowitz chasing behind.

2.2km: With no teammates to crank up the pace to set up an attack, Vingegaard is in a tough place here since he can’t create any separation from Pogačar and has no co-leaders left to counter-attack, so he has to continue riding a hard pace, hoping to ride Pogačar off his wheel, or give up entirely. Arensman is still just under two minutes in the race lead.

Finish: Going under the 1km to go banner, Arensman still has a gap of 1.5 minutes (showing that Vingegaard’s pace isn’t going to trouble Pogačar), and crosses the finish line to win his first Tour de France stage.

GC Group 100m: Coming into the final few hundred meters, Vingegaard begins to slow up as he prepares to set up a sprint finish against Pogačar for the time bonuses on offer. However, slowing up shows to be a mistake since it allows Pogačar to explode out of his wheel and creates a gap.

GC Group Finish: By the finish line, Pogačar has opened a four-second gap on Vingegaard (plus a six-second time bonus for second), in just a few pedal strokes. He also picks up 17 Green Jersey points for second, meaning, combined with third, three for the intermediate sprint, Jonathan Milan fails to create any additional separation. Lipowitz comes in 17 seconds later to move into third place and open up a sizable gap on his overall podium competition.

Three Key Takeaways