Tour de France, stage 19: Arensman wins at La Plagne, Lipowitz defends podium from Onley, why did Vingegaard leave it so late?

New York Times

2 days ago

Thymen Arensman soloed to another win on stage 19 of the Tour de France on Friday, surprisingly outlasting Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar on the climb to La Plagne, the final hors categorie mountain of this year's race.
Florian Lipowitz, meanwhile, put 41 seconds into Oscar Onley to all but seal third place and the white jersey competition.
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News broke yesterday evening that Friday's stage would be truncated and rerouted due to an agricultural emergency, so opportunities to create the sort of chaos we saw yesterday were limited. That didn't stop Primoz Roglic reprising his adventurism from stage 18 and heading off up the steep Col du Pre along with Lenny Martinez and stage 16 winner Valentin Paret-Peintre.
But any hopes the trio had of an epic raid through one of the most beautiful parts of the Alps were undermined by UAE's determination to keep them within arm's reach all day. Roglic descended the Cormet de Roselend superbly to build an advantage of around a minute but was shut down with ease in the valley that led to the La Plagne climb.
🤩 The stunning Barrage de Roselend !
🤩 Le magnifique barrage de Roselend!#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/aWpqw0ZxtH
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 25, 2025
All eyes were on Pogacar and Vingegaard on that final ascent but the crucial moment, when it came, was subtle. INEOS Grenadiers' rider Arensman made a couple of attempts to go off the front as rain drenched the favorites, and even when he got some separation with around 13 kilometres remaining, a stage-winning lead never looked realistic.
But as the top four on GC watched each other, and the distance remaining ticked down, the expected attack from Pogacar or Vingegaard didn't come. Arensmen buried himself to win, and crossed the line, exhausted, just two seconds ahead of both Vingegaard — who belatedly kicked for victory with a few hundred metres remaining — and Pogacar.
🏆 He played, he won! A look back at the last kilometer of stage 19 and the victory of @ThymenArensman!
🏆 Il a joué, il a gagné ! Retour sur le dernier km de l'étape 19 et la victoire de @ThymenArensman !#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/ScQygOeUi2
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 25, 2025
The Dutchman now has two stage wins in this year's Tour, as many Vingegaard has recorded in the last three editions combined. It was hard to shake the feeling that that the Visma leader had let a win slip through his fingers by waiting for a Pogacar attack that never came.
Jacob Whitehead and Tim Spiers break down the key moments from the stage.
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An Alpine peak, that was not. Friday's stage 19 was always likely to lack the punch of the previous day, featuring fewer metres of climbing, and at shallower gradients, but as the final major climbing opportunity before Paris, this was the last real opportunity to force any major gaps.
Having been shortened at late notice on Thursday evening — it was cut from 129.9km to 95km after a herd of cows with nodular dermatitis were slaughtered on the Col des Saisies — it had also appeared to present the illusion of being fast and furious. Would any team ride it like a team time trial, ratcheting up the pace before launching a huge attack?
In reality, the loss of the Saisies climb made the racing far more conservative. With Lidl-Trek preventing any breakaway before the intermediate sprint, protecting Jonathan Milan's green jersey, the flat run-in to the notoriously steep Col du Pre gave no leading team the opportunity to stash a satellite rider up the road.
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With that, the tactical playbook was slashed in two — a similar stand-off occurred in 2018, when a 65km stage from Bagneres‑de-Luchon to Saint-Lary-Soulan left the GC contenders marking each other, rather than take a major risk.
This year, as well, the riders were coming off one of the toughest days in modern Tour history — a triple-header of the Col du Glandon, Col de la Madeleine, and Col de la Loze. They appeared genuinely exhausted — turning the final ascent to La Plagne into a rainy uphill grind at a relatively flat pace. This was about engines — not acceleration.
'I just want to get on the bus and get in the hot shower,' a visibly exhausted Pogacar said after the stage.
Faced with this profile, Vingegaard never really had an opportunity to gain the four minutes and 26 seconds he needed to snatch yellow from Pogacar. Instead, his best opportunity to salvage any extra from this Tour would be a stage win — he opted to let Pogacar pace, stay on his wheel, and take his chances on the sprint.
In the event, Vingegaard beat Pogacar on an uphill finish for the first time in this race — pipping him by a bike length, and, with the time bonuses, actually reducing his deficit to the Slovenian by a couple of seconds.
But the prize here was the stage win, not a two-second comeback, and that honour went to Thymen Arensman. It was an odd finish to a truncated day.
Jacob Whitehead
As Thymen Arensman did a huge, owl-like swing of his head to quickly look directly behind him 100 or so metres from the line, he couldn't believe what he was seeing: tarmac and nothing else.
No yellow jersey within a trimmable distance, no polka dot jersey, just victory. A shock victory.
The Dutchman had already won a stage in the Pyrenees but in very different circumstances, with him having generated a gap of as much as three-and-a-half minutes on stage 14, enabling him to hold off the cavalry relatively comfortably when they charged.
Here, his advantage over Pogacar, Vingegaard, Lipowitz and Onley was never more than 30 seconds after he attacked 13 kilometres from the finish of the achingly long La Plagne climb.
It seemed only a matter of time before the GC riders reeled Arensman in, even if that was to be via a very late sprint finish. With one kilometre to go the gap was 18 seconds… then it came down to 10 seconds, but Arensman gave every possible last ounce of effort and wasn't caught.
After he practically fell over the line, Arensman then literally fell into the advertising boards, sat on the floor and covered his face with his hands with incredulity. He couldn't believe what he'd just achieved.
💪 Brutal#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/RRCrGiRjCX
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 25, 2025
'I'm absolutely destroyed,' he said.
'I can't believe it, already to win one stage in the tour from a break, unbelievable, but now, from the GC group against the strongest riders in the world, it feels like I'm dreaming.
'It's Tadej and Jonas, they're the strongest in the world, almost aliens.
'As a human I still wanted to try and beat them. I don't know what I just did.'
As well as immense personal glory, Arensman has also saved INEOS Grenadiers' Tour. They lost Carlos Rodriguez, who was 10th on GC, a couple of days earlier, but two iconic Arensman victories surely makes up for that, in racing terms at least.
Tim Spiers
Florian Lipowitz has been the third-best climber of the Tour de France, but at times he has not ridden like it. The German's challenge has been tactics — having only begun riding seriously as a 19-year-old, his huge engine needs to be aimed in the right direction.
Holding just a 22 second lead over Oscar Onley, he looked in potential trouble with 10 kilometres left. Roglic's ultimately-futile early attack had robbed him of a potential Red Bull ally, while Onley had teammate Frank van den Broek alongside him.
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But here, rather than attack early and risk another major blow-up, Lipowitz was happy to ride defensively, following Onley's wheel. The Scot would have wanted to attack earlier on La Plagne, but with Vingegaard and Pogacar marking each other, Onley would have risked Lipowitz pacing his way back behind the two strongest riders.
In the end, Onley cracked first. As the pace increased in the final kilometres, with Thymen Arensman being chased down for the stage victory, the 22-year-old teetered, before then being definitively separated from the leading trio. Lipowitz then pushed the pace himself — eventually finishing 41 seconds ahead of Onley.
His lead is now 63 seconds — and although there are potential time-gaps in Saturday's lumpy stage 20, Red Bull's strength means it is extremely unlikely that a gap of that size will be overhauled. It will be Lipowitz's first Grand Tour podium, after finishing seventh in last year's Vuelta a Espana, and the first German to finish in the Tours top three since Andreas Kloden in 2006.
Jacob Whitehead
Has there been more of a Jekyll and Hyde game of two halves from any rider on any stage of this year's Tour de France than what Primoz Roglic served up in stage 19?
First half: what a day he's having! Oh this is the Primoz of old, it's great to see! Allez Primoz!
Second half: pain, misery, into the reddest of red zones, practically riding backwards, oh this is awful to see, a once-great champion humbled in this manner. Poor Primoz!
It's safe to say Roglic's intentions, for the second successive stage, weren't really to ride in support of his podium-chasing younger teammate Lipowitz.
The Slovenian was desperate to get in the big break of the day and succeeded up the Col de Pre, then took 20-odd seconds on Valentin Paret-Peintre and Lenny Martinez on the descent towards La Plagne.
However, he put so much effort into forging that lead, he forgot, or had no intention of, saving himself for the final climb.
Roglic è un missile in discesa 🤯🚴‍♂️💨
Lo sloveno con una masterclass nella discesa del Cormet de Roselend #TDF2025 #Cycling #Roglic pic.twitter.com/UL8m2IhUvB
— Eurosport IT (@Eurosport_IT) July 25, 2025
The pace of UAE Emirates and Tim Wellens meant he was swallowed up some 20km from the finish, just before the start of the climb, and then he began riding through treacle, eventually finishing more than 12 and a half minutes down.
That cost him a top-five place on GC, moving him down to eighth, not that you would imagine he was particularly bothered.
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His solo effort did nothing for the team, nor for his own personal position. But he did it his way — and it was never going to be any other way.
Tim Spiers
The penultimate stage of the race takes in the Jura mountains, and although it doesn't feature anything tougher than a second category climb, the peloton will be tired and — for teams who have not won a stage by this point — a bit desperate. Expect a breakaway in this one, plus some late action in the general classification race too, if we're lucky.
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