Tour de France 2025: Van der Poel sprints to stage two victory and into yellow jersey
The Dutchman thwarted Tadej Pogacar's attempt to take the 100th win of his career, outsprinting the defending Tour champion on the steady final climb of the Boulevard Auguste Mariette.
'The final was actually harder than I thought,' said Van der Poel. 'I was really motivated. It's four years since I won my first stage on the Tour, so it was about time I won a second one.'
Philipsen, who had started the stage in the yellow jersey after winning stage one to Lille on Saturday, was distanced in the closing kilometres and Van der Poel took the race lead from the Belgian sprinter.
'People said I was a favourite, but if you see which riders were in front, on the climbs, I did a really good job today to be there,' said Van der Poel, winner of the 2023 World Road Race Championships in Glasgow. 'The climbs were harder than I expected and [ridden at] a hard pace. It was a nervous day again.'
Pogacar's main rival, Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike, followed the Slovenian across the finish line, with the Olympic champion, Remco Evenepoel, distanced on Saturday's stage, showing greater vigilance to also finish in the front group.
Meanwhile, away from the Tour, Vingegaard's wife, Trine Vingegaard Hansen, told the Danish newspaper Politiken that the Visma-Lease a Bike team is pushing her husband 'too far'. 'I'm afraid he's burning the candle at both ends,' she said of the double Tour winner. 'I think people sometimes forget the human being behind the athlete. It could all backfire.'
Primoz Roglic, only a year ago characterised as one of the Tour's 'big four', finished in the lead group after ceding ground in Lille, but has done little so far to dispel the impression that he has relinquished any lingering hopes of contending for the overall title.
The Slovenian is the winner of the Vuelta a España four times and also the Giro d'Italia in 2023, but told the media as the race began that he 'didn't really care' and just wanted to 'make it to Paris for a glass of champagne'. He has been anonymous so far.
The 35-year-old was, with his Bora Hansghrohe teammate Florian Lipowitz, among those who missed Saturday's decisive split in the front group on the fast approach to Lille. 'The guys were asleep,' Roglic's sports director, Enrico Gasparotto, said of their costly error on the opening stage. 'We talked about that stretch, the wind and the related dangers, but they were surprised. We are all aware of the opportunity we wasted: Roglic and Lipowitz lost the chance to gain time on Remco. We learned an important lesson.'
Worse befell the hapless French rider Benjamin Thomas, who crashed on Saturday's stage while fighting his compatriot Mattéo Vercher for a single point in the mountains classification on Mont Cassel. He woke on Sunday morning to the news that his bike, along with 10 others from the Cofidis team, worth about €140,000 (£120,000), had been stolen from their vehicles overnight.
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Ineos Grenadiers are also already on the back foot, having lost the time-trialling powerhouse Filippo Ganna on stage one to a concussion, while their team leader, Carlos Rodríguez, and the 2018 Tour winner, Geraint Thomas, both missed the decisive break in Saturday's dramatic finale in Lille.
Movistar's Marlen Reusser won the individual time trial opening stage of the Giro d'Italia Women to claim the race leader's pink jersey. The Swiss national time trial champion went 12 seconds quicker than Lotte Kopecky on the 14.2km course through Bergamo to claim the stage win and will wear the maglia rosa during Monday's second stage from Clusone to Aprica. The Italian Elisa Longo Borghini finished third, 16 seconds behind Reusser.
Both Rodríguez and Thomas lost a further 31sec to the front group on the run-in to Boulogne-sur-Mer, and are now 1min 16sec behind Pogacar after the opening weekend.
Sir Dave Brailsford, Ineos's returning supremo, and Thomas, his management protege in waiting, already have much to ponder. 'I should have stopped last year, to be honest,' the 39-year-old Welshman observed drily on Saturday. Monday is another day, but there is yet another tricky stage to come, through the Nord and towards the Channel, this time to Dunkirk, in which the cobbles of Mont Cassel and the crosswinds off the sea will again play their part.
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The rigours of the professional tennis tour are such that few players have time in their life for anything else. But after taking a break from the sport in 2023, Amanda Anisimova discovered another practice she was equally passionate about: painting. 'I got into art when I was struggling with my mental health, and it was something that I did in my free time just to get my mind off of things,' Anisimova said last Friday after her third-round victory over Dalma Galfi. 'Once I was done with my training day or had a day off, it's something I would do. 'I think before that I didn't have any hobbies or interests other than just, like, hanging out with my friends and family, so I wanted to find something that I enjoyed doing on my own. 'I feel like it's just a very good get-away for myself.' While unable to paint while travelling in a bid to manage the extra weight she has to lug from tournament to tournament, Anisimova instead takes in museums to indulge her interest; the Musee d'Orsay in Paris is a favourite. It's rare that so much time in a press conference might be dedicated to off-court pursuits, but as she prepares to play her first Grand Slam final on Wimbledon 's Centre Court on Saturday afternoon, Anisimova has proven that her unique story among her peers on the women's tour is paying dividends. A supremely talented junior who first started playing after attending her sister Maria Anisimova-Egee's tennis lessons as a child, Anisimova's second Grand Slam semi-final came 18 majors after her first. The New Jersey-born Russian-American was just 17 when she made the last four at the French Open in 2019, but she had already spent three years as a professional, toiling mostly on the third-tier ITF circuit. Miraculously, she made it through the draw without dropping a set before her run-in with Roland-Garros' eventual champion Ash Barty. Considering her route included the defending champion Simona Halep, and then-No 11 seed Aryna Sabalenka, Anisimova appeared to have arrived on tennis' biggest stage in a major way. But just as her star was rising, unimaginable tragedy struck months later. Anisimova's father Konstantin died of a heart attack at 52 years old. Taking up her first seeding at her home slam, the US Open, a week later was postponed, and the teenager played only two more tournaments that season. 'This is obviously the hardest thing I've had to go through and the hardest thing that's ever happened to me, and I don't really talk about it with anyone,' Anisimova told the New York Times less than a year later. 'The only thing that has helped me is just playing tennis and being on the court. 'That's what makes me happy, and I know it would make him happy, so that's the way it is.' Konstantin, and Anisimova's mother Olga, were both powerful forces for the player in her early career, with Konstantin part of her coaching set-up until only a little while before his passing. Although Anisimova pulled out of tournaments to try and prioritise the grieving process, the interview revealed that she had opted to throw herself into tennis as a way of dealing with the tragedy, and in a bid to feel closer to him. 'It never goes away,' Anisimova added in reference to her grief. 'But you can't change it, and you have to go back to life.' Saying things and doing them are different, however, and Anisimova's attempts to throw herself into her career were stymied by two major forces out of her control. The Covid-19 pandemic put paid to plans to utilise her world No 21 ranking to make deep runs at the Slams, and persistent injury concerns would set her back further. While impressive results dotted her 2021 and 2022 seasons, including the dispatching of defending champion Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open in the latter year, Anisimova would move up and down rankings within the top 50, but seemed well off her early potential. In 2023, the dam burst, and Anisimova made a seismic decision few players have the confidence - or the foresight - to make. On the heels of a first-round defeat at the Madrid Open, the 21-year-old announced that she would be taking a break from tennis. With no plans to return. 'I've really been struggling with my mental health and burnout since the summer of 2022,' Anisimova shared in an Instagram statement. 'It's become unbearable being at tennis tournaments. 'At this point my priority is my mental well-being and taking a break for some time. I've worked as hard as I could to push through it.' 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Getting to grips with the mental side of the sport has accounted for part of her rise, but dealing with physical concerns has helped too. Anisimova brought physiotherapist Shadi Soleymani into her team in March to reshape her body and help her to move past the constant injury concerns that have plagued her for most of her professional career. Soleymani has restructured her vegan diet, introducing protein and helping her cut a heavy caffeine habit, and used her background in biomechanics to retrain the way Ansimova, who stands at nearly 6ft, moves on court. Soleymani is also an important female member of Anisimova's set-up, with the physio sharing in an interview with the Athletic this week that she's 'like a mom' to the player when called upon. Anisimova's circle is important to her. Her closest friend on the tour is fellow player Priscilla Hon, but the 23-year-old is close to other stars, such as Emma Raducanu, as well. 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Roos is the son of Australian Football League legend Paul Roos, and a former Australian Football player himself, and sent Anisimova a sweet message of support ahead of the 2020 Australian Open, but Anisimova has kept her private life just that in the years since. There is a sense that the presence of family has been a boost for Anisimova and an important distraction from the pressures of moving through the main draw, with the star giving Jaxon's fifth birthday on Thursday equal billing with her semi-final against Sabalenka. A distraction may have been necessary. Sabalenka has been in strong grass-court form this season, the No 1 seed scything through the competition in SW19 with a view to making her first final at the Grand Slam. As one of the most consistent performers on either the ATP or WTA tour, there seemed to be little stopping her from doing so. 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In SW19, Anisimova is surrounded by her family - including her nephew Jaxon, whose birthday she celebrated on Thursday The player frustrated world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka over three knife's-edge sets that afternoon She will now look to break Iga Swiatek's flawless run in Grand Slam finals on Saturday But there's another peerless professional waiting for her in the final. Iga Swiatek may be having an unprecedented run on grass, but for her, a baking-hot Wimbledon is playing like her beloved Roland-Garros red clay. Swiatek won the girl's title at the Championships in 2018, another sticky summer, and despite having failed to win a title since her French Open win in 2024, she has never lost any of her five Grand Slam finals. The pairing is a tantalising one - Swiatek and Anisimova have never met on any surface as adults, with a 2016 Junior Fed Cup meeting the only fodder for head-to-head analysts. For Anisimova however, there is triumph already in reaching the final. 'It's been an incredible year for me,' she said after beating Sabalenka. 'To be in the Wimbledon final, I mean, I'm still trying to process it, in a way.' But how would the run look if she were to paint how she felt about it, the finalist was asked. 'I don't know,' Ansimova said. 'I typically do abstract, so it would be hard. A lot of green and white. So maybe it's some inspiration for me when I get back to make a piece.'
