Tour de France 2025 | Jonas Abrahamsen's Good Reasons

In Toulouse, the Pyrenees are an interference on the horizon, a promise or a threat looming in the distance across the Occitania sky. It wasn't yet time for climbs, it was still time for that unnerving ups and downs that optimists call flatlands, punctuated by a few gentle slopes to tease cycling adventurers. Men who consider the Tour de France a sum of days, not a sum of times; men capable of pedaling while imagining only the immediate future, rebels incapable of accepting the will of the group.

There were dozens and dozens of good reasons visible in the front row of the pack even before the start. Each one was extremely valid, each one unique, and above all, excluding the others.

Many tried to impose their position. Jonas Abrahamsen, Davide Ballerini, and Mauro Schmid succeeded. Mathieu Burgaudeau and Fred Wright joined them. They reached a truce that was good for getting closer to the finish line. An agreement that everyone knew would fall apart once the finish line in Toulouse was within pedaling distance.

An agreement that didn't falter even when, on a long up-and-down stretch of about sixty kilometers, not even worth a few points in the mountains classification, Jonas Vingegaard tried to surprise Tadej Pogacar and all those others who think of the Tour as a three-week long sum of times. He didn't succeed. He immediately dismissed the possibility of making up the time lost so far by the world champion (all in the time trial) when the Slovenian ended up sprawled on the asphalt after a few seconds of distraction . The Dane wants to win this Tour de France by dropping Tadej Pogacar; he's not interested in anything else. He told his teammates to wait for whoever had fallen. No one opposed his wishes. And yes, there would have been nothing wrong with that; falls are part of cycling. Jonas Vingegaard, however, is a gentleman ( he has demonstrated it many times, most clearly during the descent of the Col de Spandelles in the Grande Boucle three years ago ), and he is convinced that time is equally so. This is almost never true, but so it is.

And even less so when a group of very tough people has materialized behind them, people whose talent and CV would make most people pale: Arnaud de Lie, Axel Laurence, Quinn Simmons, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel .

The agreement broke down where it should have broken down, on the Côte de Pech David, eight hundred meters of insane gradient overlooking the Garonne . Mauro Schmid and Jonas Abrahamsen accelerated, remained alone, and tried to become uncatchable.

Behind Davide Ballerini, Mathieu Burgaudeau and Fred Wright could do nothing but watch them shrink before them.

Even further back, Mathieu van der Poel was trying to imitate them, unaware that he was imitating them. The interference from his radio had prevented him from realizing that there were two more riders ahead of the three he had captured. He only realized it when he glimpsed them a few hundred meters away, now out of reach . He saw them slow down, scanning the space behind them. He saw Mauro Schimid attempt a sprint, Jonas Abrahamsen catch up to him, overtake him, and celebrate his stage victory .

And then be surprised. Because he shouldn't even be at the start of this Tour de France. He'd broken his collarbone on June 18th, had surgery, immediately got back on the rollers, and eleven days later he was already in the peloton at the Norwegian national championships . If you can do certain things, certain recoveries, it means you're more motivated than anyone else. It means you're not afraid of anything. Not a two-man sprint, let alone a world champion on your tail.

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