I Have NEVER Seen a Stage End Like THIS | Tour de France 2025 Stage 20

Lanterne Rouge presents highlights of Tour de France 2025 Stage 20.

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Credits:
Footage | Amaury Sport Organisation
Photos | Cor Vos (unless stated otherwise)

Rainy conditions, crashes in the final, GC top 10s going out the window, and some strange, strange tactics. This is what you normally get at the end of a Grand Tour. Stage 20 of the Tour to France. It’s a transition stage, not a sprint and not a mountain stage either. 3,000 m of climbing across a lot of hills, although the longest climb was at the start of the day. Flat finish, though. If this sort of stage was in week one, you might see a team control, but most of the riders here are very, very tired. And the guarantee when this stage started was that it would be a breakaway. So if you’re a strong sprinter, the goal is to just get in the break. Asgaran won a stage like this last year. Healy’s trying to go across with Schmid and Abrahamson. Wonat’s trying to go on the break with Alfa Phipe and Foss. And on the P de la Deera, we see Vizma jumping with UAE and Wellins there. Quinn Simmons. Great stage for him as well. EF Education Easy Post. They just getting the break every day. Every day they’re getting the break. Palace and Sweeney are two good options. Well tries again. doesn’t go doesn’t go on that climb. It’s the descent where splits really happen actually because the wet conditions some riders backing off. Do you really want to risk your race at the end of 3 weeks after you’ve made it this far? So there’s a big split here with no GC riders except maybe Healey and then Wellins Jorgensson go across with you and Costu Pagu was always pretty much under control. Navias was with him. Frank Londenbrook Romeo Stewart go across Stewart very very strong and so we have a counter move to the front three. Sweeney, uh, Trenton, Kaden Groves, the games begin. Kaden Groves is not allowing Tim Wellness to do what he did on stage 15 where he sat on at the start. But the fly in the ointment for everybody in the break is Jordan Jagar, at least initially, because he’s 11th on GC and he’s not very far behind Benon. A couple of three minutes or something. And so Jacob Alula start chasing this breakaway whereas everyone else in this break is a verifiable stage hunter punchers classic sort of sprinters. Schmid was chasing for Jacob. He crashes Aaron Buu cuz miss it start pacing but it stops. Pel UA don’t care about top 10 GC for UAE. This break is totally fine. I mean they got Wellens in it who just killed everybody on the stage 15 breakaway to take the stage win. Even Romeo for Mavastar he won a doofan stage very similar one to this. Schmid comes back. So, credit to him for pacing, but we get to the cozy. Are there going to be counter moves? Can O’ Connor solve it himself? The answer was no. Well, there was a counter move, but Jordan Jagar starts pacing. Groves lets him go. And indeed, Okconor goes to the front. Healey is behind in front of him on GC. So, he is all live to that. Johannison’s right there. And then there’s Vingard, Lipitz, and Patcha. So, that doesn’t go anywhere. Groves lets the wheel of Jagard go. 50, you know, 60 kilo climber. Where’s he going to go? Over 64ks. A counter move comes from Vanachuins, Stletra, Mike Woods and Johannes that gets in a Shaspat never really makes closer than two minutes. Sweeney goes across to Jagar. And this was maybe a mistake from the others. Maybe Sweeney got a bit over excited, but look who’s pacing. Always pacing in this group even on the climbs. Kaden Groves. You would think that on this climb it would be the the lighter guys or the climbers that or the punchers that would have gone, but it’s Kaden Grove’s pacing and on the front he’s doing a lot of work. Never misses a turn. There’s other guys skipping turns. Sweeney gets rid of Jagar and the gap builds really, really fast. Schmidt’s trying to control the gap to Jagar. And then it’s raining. So it’s raining again. Slippery roads. Got road furniture. Okconor starts to pull to defend his own top 10 on GC. And then the Fuger Dilla. Well, it’s not the fuger because Sweeny’s in the fuger. They begin the lack of cooperation and then there’s just groups everywhere with the road furniture with Jorgensson and Wellan’s eyeing each other. There’s groups all over the place with Sweeney in front. So, it was looking good for Sweeney, but he blew up a little bit because he gets to this 2K 5 and a half% climb, gets caught probably at the wrong time, and that’s when Groves again, Kaden Groves looks the strongest on this climb. the Vulta Lindberg winner which we all watched where he destroyed two lotto riders who were ganging up on him. He’s not just a sprinter. He’s a versatile sprinter. He can ride a classic. I’d like to see him in more Cobble Classics next year. I think he did rebate for the first time this year and was already good. Romeo, he likes to attack on descents. Gregoire’s not a bad descender either. That’s how he won his tour to Swiss stage this year. But Romeo undercuts him, misses the corner completely. That causes Gregoire to miss his line. Velasco just holds it up, but he goes wider. Frank Vandenbrook makes the corner the best. Groves and Stewart also holds it up behind Velasco, but a little bit better. So, they can exit quicker and they get into this group. 18ks to go. Crash is all over the place. Vanderbrook’s not pulling. Stewart’s fast. You know, he won a Dofane stage ahead of Johnny Mean. He should have probably got more opportunities here. Kaden Groves, he’s won nine Grand Tour stages in sprints. We all know he’s fast and Stuart’s not having it. Stuart is not having Frank Venbrook sit on and then attack them later and both of them just let Kaden Groves right away for a tour to France stage when these sort of things can happen when you feel like you’re being taken advantage of. Should Venbrook probably have attacked him right here? Yes, that’s probably the play. You got to attack him right here. They both just wait and you’re not bringing back Kaden Groves. He’s a truck. He’s really really strong in rainy conditions. is the end of 180ks, flat 14ks. Everybody else looking behind him. Frank Benbrook and Stewart go back to Velasco’s group. Kaden Groves probably can’t believe his luck. He was thinking, “All right, I’m going to have to beat Stewart in the sprint. I’m going to have to keep pacing to keep the others behind.” Okconor stops pacing, gives up on his top 10 GC, by the way. He just ran out of teammates and so Jagat was looking good. He didn’t collapse at all. But yeah, Gross’s thinking, I got to manage Vanderbrook’s attacks and then win the sprint against Stewart. He never had to. He just rode away without having to attack. obviously mega strong just kept going and he deserved it. He never missed a pool. He took over and did more than his fair share on the climbs and he takes his 10th Grand Tour stage victory. Frank Vandenbrook another second two years in a row. And I’d already turned my TV off at this point, but I see here there was a crash not too far in front of Paga. He and Vanard miss it. There was no 3K rule today, I don’t think. And Venard’s laughing with him like the tour is never over until it’s over. Although they were congratulating him at the end. So Pagacha got through the tricky stage with the rain and everything unharmed with Groves wins out of Vandenbrook, Anon, Velasco, Gregwell, Stewart, Jagger, Wellens, Jorgensson, Sweeney. Three different stage winners from Albertson, Vanderpool, Philipsson, and Groves this tour to France. This is what he had to say after the stage. Ken Groves, you’re a man who has already won a lot of races and on grand tours on the Walt on the Jurro, but apparently winning a stage on the tour of France really means something. Yeah, of course. I mean, uh there’s so many emotions to win here. Uh the team, we come here with so many different plans with Yasper Mature and in the end, uh I get my own opportunities and uh they haven’t gone the right way. Uh but today, I mean, yeah, I had super legs. Um and I just suffered uh to the lighted reward. We get a we get a tour stage because honestly we were not expecting expecting a a sprint finish. We were not expecting a sprinter. How did you do it? Oh, the tea. Yeah. Gave me the free roll the last days. Uh especially today. We weren’t sure whether to go for the stage with myself or uh save for tomorrow. But in the end, um, when the rain starts to fall, I always have a super feeling normally, um, in the cold weather. And, uh, yeah, it’s, like I said, it’s my first time ever winning solo headed to West. So, it’s pretty incredible. In terms of GC, there was one change. You got taking like 5 minutes, 6 minutes, no, 5 minutes on Ben Oconor and moving into 10th on GC, 2 minutes ahead of him. So, it’s not even like Okconor can make up that time with a a late attack tomorrow on the Shams stage, which has the Matra circuit. It shouldn’t be a procession to the finish, but there’s some rain predicted. Hope you enjoy the video. See you then. Choo choo.