Belgian national champ Tim Wellens completes the Grand Tour stage win trilogy at the Tour de France after a calculated day out in the move of the day.
Cor Vos
Out of the Pyrenees and towards Carcassonne, stage 15 was neither a mountain nor sprint stage, but a perfect chance for a breakaway to slip away from an idling peloton for a historic victory. The fight for the day’s move was busy and not without incident or echelons, but eventually a small group escaped the large breakaway, many of them already Tour de France stage winners.
One who was yet to add his name to the vaunted club was Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). The Belgian notably took a day off in the gruppetto on stage 14 while his teammates looked after the race leader, and after a cool and calm ride up the longest climb of the day, he was ready to pounce just outside 43 km to go. He carried a small advantage onto the long descent, and in no time at all, Group 2 Syndrome set in among the chasers.
By 5 km to go, Wellens had almost two minutes over a group 2 that was swelling as fragments of the large breakaway regained contact. The win was all but sealed. A few kilometres from the finish, Visma-Lease a Bike’s Victor Campenaerts slipped away to ensure second place eight seconds ahead of a 22-rider group at full tilt towards the line, where Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) lunged into third ahead of Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) – and then celebrated as if he’d won the stage.
The GC group was led home 6:07 down by Ben Healy after his EF Education-EasyPost teammates, along with Uno-X Mobility for Tobias Johannessen, had tried to defend their GC positions from breakaway rider Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers). Their efforts were unsuccessful, but only just, Healy now trailing the Spaniard by 15 seconds in 10th overall.
[race_result id=17 stage_id=86010 count=10 gc=0 year=2025]
[race_result id=17 stage_id=86010 count=10 gc=10 year=2025]
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