The last mountain stage of the 2025 Tour de France ended with another victory by someone not named Tadej Pogačar, this time, Thymen Arensman took his second win of the race.
Tobias Halland Johannessen spent 2146 kilojoules over 2:09h at 16.56 kj/kg/h before La Plagne. With the GC group setting a relatively moderate pace, Thymen Arensman attacked early and got away, this time not as part of a breakaway. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard did not concern themselves too much with the Dutchman, as he posed no threat in the general classification. The real battle was between Florian Lipowitz and Oscar Onley for third place and the best young rider’s jersey. Arensman found himself in a perfect situation, as Pogačar did not want to pull too hard as Vingegaard was on his wheel.
With Onley dropping 2 km from the finish and Lipowitz starting to pull hard, there was a moment where it seemed Arensman might get caught. But with Vingegaard and Pogačar unwilling to gift each other the stage by launching first, they effectively handed the win to Arensman. There were no major changes in the GC, except Johannessen gaining two places to move up to 6th, while Primož Roglič, who had spent all his energy in the breakaway, lost 12 minutes and slipped from 5th to 8th.
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Arensman’s performance was actually of very high level, 6.38 ᵉW/kg for 45:30 min, and 6.73 ᵉW/kg normalized to sea level. In terms of pure watts, it was very close to Pogačar’s effort on Hautacam. However, that stage was affected by extreme heat, while today’s rainy conditions helped with cooling. Arensman was 16 seconds slower than Mark Padun on La Plagne in the 2021 Dauphiné, where the Ukrainian posted 6.21 ᵉW/kg for 45:14.
