Tour de France Week: The Team Sport of Cycling
We know cycling as an individual sport, but it's also a team sport
Most of us know cycling by its great champions. Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Greg LeMond and Miguel Indurain. Or maybe by its disgraced doping fueled victors like Lance Armstrong. Or even modern champions like Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. But all of those winners were supported by their team.
What a minute? Team? Isn’t cycling an individual sport? What the hell is this team nonsense?
Yes. Team. At the Tour de France, each team brings 8 riders and all are there to do a job of some type. The vast majority of them aren’t there to win the race overall. Heck the vast majority of the riders aren’t even there to win a stage of the Tour. They are there to lend support to their leader or leaders who are trying win stages or the Tour itself.
Notably, teams are named after their sponsors. That is a post for another day, but it is important to know as we go through each team and their goals for the Tour. Teams below will categorized as follows by objective: Overall Victory, Overall podium, Sprint Stages, Breakaway Stages and Happy to be here.
OVERALL VICTORY - For these teams, the Tour de France will only be successful if their leader wins the race overall and is addressing the Paris crowd as the champion.
UAE Team Emirates
Leader: Tadej Pogacar
Can anyone even challenge Pogacar barring a crash is the real question connected to this team? Pogacar won the Tour in 2020, 2021 and 2024. He also won the Giro in 2024 and nearly every race he’s entered over the last two years. And unlike most contenders for the overall, he enters a lot of races. He’s also supported by Joao Almeida (the best stage racer other than Pogacar and Vingegaard this season) and Adam Yates (on the podium two years ago)
Team Visma | Lease a Bike
Leader: Jonas Vingegaard
After winning the Tour in 2022 and 2023, Vingegaard was beaten by Pogacar once again last season. The question is how much of that was prep time lost to injury after his horror crash last April and how much was is Pogacar leveling up again as he enters his prime. Vingegaard has the best support of any GC leader with Giro winner Simon Yates, 2023 Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson on board in the mountains.
Soudal Quick-Step
Leader: Remco Evenepoel
The only man in this category to have not won the Tour yet, Evenepoel and his team won the Vuelta in 2022, multiple monuments and did an Olympic double gold medal last year in Paris. He is formidable and the best time trial rider in the sport right now. The question, as always, is his ability in the high mountains and if his teammates can pick him up in the mountains if he has an off day. And he always has an off day.
OVERALL PODIUM
Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe
Leaders: Primoz Roglic, Florian Lipowitz
Roglic has turned out to be this generations quintessential Vuelta/Giro specialist. Most cycling generations have one sometimes that person wins one Tour (Vincenzo Nibali in 2014) and other times it just doesn’t work out for whatever reason (the doping era in particular is littered with multiple Giro and Vuelta winners who couldn’t beat Armstrong). For Roglic, his one shot was stolen in the famous time trial loss to Pogacar in 2020. But he’s still coming to try though the podium and finishing the race are the real goals. Additionally, Lipowitz looks like the best climber of the next generation especially after he was 3rd overall in a particularly climb heavy Dauphine, beating Evenepoel in the process.
Ineos Grenadiers
Leader: Carlos Rodriguez
Does this team have any chance at reaching the podium with Carlos Rodriguez (7th last year, 5th in 2023)? No. Does that matter? No. The standard is the standard and when you win seven Tours in eight years with four different riders as Ineos/Team Sky did and you don’t have an obvious focus change with a sprinter, the minimum acceptable goal remains the same. Realistically, this team is looking for a top 5 and send retiring 2018 Tour winner Geraint Thomas out on a positive note.
Movistar
Leader: Enric Mas
For whatever reason, Mas has generally only been good in his second Grand Tour of the year. He’ll have to change that to compete for the podium here which would go alongside his two Vuelta podiums.
Jayco Alula
Leader: Ben O’Connor
O’Connor has a 4th in the Tour and a runner up at the Vuelta on his record. But both came from long breakaways that he is unlikely to be given the space for in this Tour. There are questions as to how good his team is, especially as they have brought sprinter Dylan Groenewagen to chase stage wins along with the overall.
Bahrain Victorious
Leaders: Santiago Buitrago, Lenny Martinez
Overall or stages? Buitrago thinks he can make the podium. Martinez is much more likely to be a stage hunter. How they combine determines how successful the steam will be at either objective.
SPRINT STAGES
Alpecin - Deceunick
Leaders: Jasper Philipsen, Mathieu van der Poel
Philipsen has been the star sprinter of the last couple of years, van der Poel is a fantastic lead out man and the team decided to bring Kaden Groves (master of Vuelta and Giro sprints over the last two seasons) as well. It’s just an embarassment of riches in this category.
Intermarche -Wanty
Leader: Biniam Girmay
Girmay is already the greatest African cyclist of all time after his three stage wins a year ago and he’s still only 25. That aid he’s had a bad season so far compared to the last few where he won Gent-Wevelgem, a Giro stage and the three Tour stages.
Lidl - Trek
Leaders: Jonathan Milan, Mattias Skjelmose
Which is more important? Stage wins for Milan or an overall bid for Skjelmose? Looking at the team list, it seems the answer is much more Milan as he has support for sprints that Skjelmose isn’t receiving in the mountains.
Lotto
Leader: Arnaud De Lie
It’s been a difficult season for Lotto and their leader De Lie. Injuries and a lack of form have left the team struggling for wins. But the Tour is always a chance to turn that around.
BREAKAWAY STAGES
EF Education - Easy Post
Leaders: Neilson Powless, Ben Healy
For Powless, a stage win would be a crowing achievement as a stage hunter and hilly classics type. For Healy, it would confirm that what he’s shown in other races is no fluke. And for EF, it would be yet another stage win for a team that is not well resourced but still manages to win something nearly every year.
Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale
Leader: Felix Gall
Gall is also going for GC, but when he’s at his best, he often grabs a stage win as well. He won on the Col de la Loze in 2022 (site of this year’s toughest finish) and at the recent Tour de Suisse whiel supporting a top finish overall. Still, the stage win is more important than the overall unless Gall sneaks a surprise podium finish.
Cofidis
Leaders: Ion Izagirre, Emanuel Buchmann
After shockingly winning two stages in 2023, Cofidis returned to normal last year. Normal is trying hard and never winning anything. Which is what has happened every year since 2008 except the aforementioned 2023 Tour.
Groupama - FDJ
Leader: Guillaume Martin
New leader, new attitude, bad results. No more Thiabult Pinot. No more Arnaud Demare. Just a team that looks a lot like Cofidis. With a roster that looks like a Cofidis roster. I lack confidence in this team right now.
Picnic PostNL
Leader: Warren Barguil
Ditto Groupama - FDJ. Talisman Romain Bardet is retired and while Warren Barguil has won stages and the King of the Mountains in the past, this team looks ill equipped to accomplish anything unless young British prospect Oscar Onley overachieves in his first Tour.
Israel Premier Tech
Leader: Questionmark
Lots of middling climbers and no leader on this team after Derek Gee went to the Giro and finished a fantastic 4th place.
Tudor Pro Cycling
Leaders: Julian Alaphilippe, Matteo Trentin
Alaphilippe was looking spry for the first time in a couple of years at the Tour de Suisse and Trentin is often good for a stage win from a breakaway in a transition stage considering he has three of them in his career, but none since 2019.
HAPPY TO BE HERE - All of these teams are likely to be in the breakaway daily and any noteworthy result is a bonus. Special note that Astana in its attempt to stay in the top level of cycling has chosen a weak team while stronger riders focus on other races.
Arkea - B&B Hotels
Leaders: Kevin Vaquelin, Arnaud Demare
XDS Astana
Leader: Committee
Team TotalEnergies
Leader: None
Uno-X Mobility
Leaders: Unknown