Tour de France 2025 Stage 5 Preview – Mathieu van der Poel vs Tadej Pogacar in the Time Trial?

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Hello everyone and welcome to another video here on the Psyching Dane Exo channel as we continue our coverage of the 2025 Tour of France. And remember, we also have a podcast on Spotify, so check that out in the pin comment below. Nevertheless, stage 5 is the first individual time trial of the 2025 tour to France, which unfolds in K. And it’s more than just a test of watts and wind tunnel optimization. This 33 km loop is a celebration of a city that has endured conquest, bombings, and rebirth, and now marks its 1,000 anniversary with infitting faction with the tour to France. A battle of pure will, power, and precision for the riders. K, once the stronghold of William the Conqueror, is no stranger to the historic turning points of the world. Today it could be the place where the first true cracks form in the GC or where the yellow jersey finds new shoulders. The time trial begins near the quay van Dior and the boulevard de alias just beside the iconic chat de from the gun. The riders dive into an urban maze before heading north through sand contest and out into the open Calvados countryside. a landscape of rolling fields and exposed flats. The riders in the beginning of the stage will have several technical twists and turns before they get out of the city. Just in the first 5 km or so, they have not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven, but eight corners to tackle and a number of roundabouts as well. The riders will then come to the first checkpoint after the route gently rises through the memorial de and the malong before reaching the first intermediate time check at the compen. This is where pacing becomes crucial. The incline is mild but enough to burn matches if misjudged early. Plus the technical parts of the route will also take a bit out of the riders. From there, the riders will have a long straight and then a turn just before 20 km to go and then a second sharp turn and a softer turn before they come into Thanon, which marks the second intermediate time check for the riders after 16.4 km to go. a more rural stretch with wide roads that allows riders to actually stay more tucked and arrow but with subtle terrain shifts and open crosswind sections potentially could catch the inattentive the riders from there just after 15 km to go will have a sharp left-hand turn and then more straight road coming into Karon and there they will have a right-hand turn before coming to Rosel where there is another sharp left-hand turn and that also marks the 10 columns to go for the riders. There will be a long straight flat into Grunchi Grunchi where we also have the 24.8 km time check. There’s a false flat rise and a series of gentle curves that might break rhythms of some riders. Riders will have to manage the effort carefully as they prepare to ramp up the speed heading back toward Kong. It’s more of a downhill profile from here compared to the rest of it. And the final 8 km are a bit of a high-speed return from S contest back into the city. It’s a fast, clean run in on Broad Boulevards. The final column to sweep past modern postwar avenues built at top centuries of rubble and renewal before finishing near K de general de Gaul in the heart of a city that once lay in ruins but now stands defiant. In terms of the profile analysis, the stage profile while appearing flat actually accumulates about 190 m in that 33 km distance almost entirely through shallow drags and rolling undulations. There are no real climbs, but maintaining speeds over these small rises will separate the strongest from the super latattive. But the host city of the time trial isn’t just another stage town. It’s a symbol of French history. Founded by William the Conqueror, home to massive abbies and medieval fortresses and devastated during the battle of K in the Second World War. This city has seen empires rise and fall. That the tour of France returns here during its millennial year gives the stage deeper meaning as well. The last time the tour visited K was back in 2006 when it was Oscar Ferrer who outsprinted Toman in a crash mod finale. This time there will be no spirits, just riders alone against the clock. No teammates, no hiding the race of truth. But before we go into the predictions, we might as well hear what Patrick thought about this stage. Stage five, we have a 33 km time trial around can pretty flat overall. So you’re going to be looking mainly at Apool versus Ghana, I expect for the stage win here. Anyways, in terms of the predictions, obviously the sad news on stage one was that Filipana left the race after a bad crash and now we turn our attention more towards that of Remco Veniple who of course has looked very strong in this year’s time trials and he is not only the world champion but also the Belgian time trial champion as well. We haven’t seen this length of time trials on many of these riders schedule. Ram Kenop has a 100% winning time trial performance this year. The one he won at the Dopane was a bit different, a bit shorter and did have a bit of an incline in there. And the other riders closest to him in terms of challenging was Yonis Mingle, Mater Jorgensson, and Taracha. Even Macho Vanipul can have a good time trial on him on his day. And maybe we can see Macho do a very good time trial here. Something akin to what he did at the Giraya. But Remco Veniple, the Olympic and world time trial and national time trial champion, will certainly be on many people’s lips and unless something really bad happens, I can’t see anyone beating the arrow bullet from Belgium. Yasing is very good as well, but it might be too flat for him and potentially we could see him losing time. And Tarabugatcha has won a very similar time trial back in 2021 on stage 5 there where it was 27 km long that had a very similar profile to this. He did take time out of yosing on that day taking 26 seconds. So maybe but that is a very long time ago. Equinely there are other good TT riders in here such as Casper Eskrine on his day who can do a good time trial as well. But it was shame on the first stage we lost Stephan Bisca and Philip Pogana. But other than those riders and Macho Vanderpole as well. We could potentially see Kevin Mlan do a good time here. Bruno Amorai for the French or even Ivan Romero who is the current under23 world time trial champion. So he has some pedigree as well. But it is slim pickings. Magnus Kat Nielson is also very good on his day in the time trial. But it is very hard to look past Remco Veniple. But we do also have the European champion Eduardo Eini and Victor Campen who are both very good time trialists on their day. And equally as well, Wavard, if he can turn it on, he is a very good rider against the clock as well. So there are a number of riders who might be targeting this, but it’s a shame that there is no Ghana. And we can’t not forget the former Olympic time trial champion as well, Primos Rugglitch, who could be up there like he was in the Jiru this year on the first time trial. So maybe some of these riders will be featuring in the pointy end when we come to this. But anyways, with that, that’s basically it for this video. Make sure to hit the like button, subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already, and of course, check out our podcast available on Spotify or in the link below. And as always, thank you for watching and I will see you in the next