Tour de France 2025 Stage 3 Preview – Can Biniam Girmay Defeat Jasper Philipsen?

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Hello everyone and welcome to another video here of the 2025 Tour to France. As stage three offers the sprinter their clearest opportunity yet, a stage of 178.3 km from Valonien to Donkirk. The day features just 800 m of elevation gain across rolling terrain. Perfect conditions for a high-speed bunch sprint, assuming the winds don’t have other plans. As mentioned, the stage starts in Malanchien, a city nestled near the Belgian border with a rich industrial and artistic past. Once known for its coal mining and lace making, the city also played a vital part during the two world wars. Today, it sends the Pelton northward through the H de France region, passing towns like Oricis, Seckin, Betun, and East. familiar terrain to riders that have done Parro Bay and the four days of Donkirk. Speaking of Paru Bay, this stage doesn’t include any cobbles, but Vanon Shien is notoriously close to the Truan Arenburgg. And unfortunately, we’re not going to be seeing that here in the tour to France. And obviously, having ridden it myself, I can attest to how difficult it can be. And there could be several crashes as we’ve seen in the past. So it’s definitely not going to be something that we will see Yonas Spingle going down or even Remco Veniple much to the annoyance of Tardigo for sure. Anyways, the first half of this stage is mostly flat allowing breakaways to form and teams to settle into a rhythm. The day’s only cascel a rise at 147.4 km. It’s a mild ascent by toward France standards 2.3 km at an average of 3.8%. Still, it serves as a launch pad potentially for late attackers, especially since it’s been used in reverse earlier in the race and features heavily in the four days of Donkur. The town of Castell itself, perched at top a hill with cobbled streets and panoramic views, was once a strategic military site and now adds to a touch of medieval charm to the race. After cresting Mont Castell, the riders drop into the flat lands with just over 30 km to go from Wormhoot to the finish. The road is wide and exposed, making crosswinds a potential wild card. If the winds blow strong off the North Sea, expect nervous positioning and possible echelon action. But if it stays calm, the sprint teams will have everything under control for sure. The stage finishes in Donkirk, France’s northernmost city and a place forever edged into history for the heroic evacuation of Allied troops in World War II. It’s also a familiar host to cycling, having been a fixture in the regional calendar for decades. The tour of France last passed through in 2022 when the Palon departed the port city for Calala and Wildard launched a stunning solo attack to the victory. But for the last tour finish in Donkirk itself, we have to go back to 2001 when the city hosted the Grand Depart and it was Krist Moro who took the prologue and the first yellow jersey. The riders will have 10 six and four bonus seconds to fight for at the finish. And the intermediate sprint comes with 60 km to go as well. So there will be something for the riders to fight for midstage. And in terms of the finish into Donkirk, it’s relatively straightforward when we look at the profile, but they will have a sharp right-hand turn and then the road meanders towards the finish and they will finish near the river inside the city itself. So, it will be a slightly technical sprint finish, but for sure, expect a chaotic high-speed drag race to the line and perhaps the first true showdown between the Pelaton’s fastest men. And when we think of that, we have obviously a few names in mind. Jonathan Milan, probably the principal rider of most, coming with a very strong little track team and also Tim Millia who looked very strong, dominating completely many of the races he’s been in this year. However, we have already had the Donker Classic this year and there we saw Pascal Akaman narrowly beating out Binyam Gumay and both these riders are in the race. So potentially these two can be featuring towards the pointy end here as well. But Tim Meria for me is looking super strong. He has a very very strong team behind him and I think that could be what really separates him from his opposition. We haven’t really seen Tim Millia and Jonathan Milan in the last few weeks up against each other, but here it could be a very very brutal showdown between the two. There are other riders to think of as well. Jake Stewart, Binium Gayas mentioned earlier, they can if they can jump on the right wheel, utilize the momentum of their sprint teams and if it is a bit of a chaotic sprint, it really could be anyone taking the win. Honor Demar as well would definitely love to take a tour of France stage win. He hasn’t won one for many years, so maybe the Frenchman will be the man to come out on top. But that is basically it for this video. We’ll make sure to see what happens on the stage. Smash the like button, hit the subscribe button if you haven’t already, and I will see you all again tomorrow for stage 4. But for now, thank you for watching, and remember to check out our podcast as well. But thank you for watching, and I will see you in the next one.