Last year’s podium finisher Remco Evenepoel has abandoned the Tour de France on stage 14, stepping off on the slopes of the Col du Tourmalet after a third consecutive day of visible struggles in the Pyrenees.
The 25-year-old double Olympic champion, who was still sitting third overall and wearing the best young rider’s white jersey when the stage began, was dropped from the peloton early on the first major climb of the day — the iconic Tourmalet, and then drifted steadily backwards before stopping to climb into his team car with around 99 kilometres still to race.
A sight no cycling fan wants to see 😢
Remco Evenepoel abandons the Tour de France 💔 pic.twitter.com/8LpJluYQRZ
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) July 19, 2025
Evenepoel’s exit follows a series of tough days for the Belgian, who admitted to feeling under the weather earlier this week. On Friday’s stage 13 mountain time trial, the world time trial champion finished a distant twelfth — the clearest sign yet that his grip on the GC podium was slipping.
Today, as the peloton hit the slopes of the Tourmalet, Evenepoel was visibly off the pace from the foot of the climb. Riding initially alongside teammate Pascal Eenkhoorn before drifting back alone, he waved away a television motorbike that got too close and spent several kilometres fighting to stay in contact. After a brief discussion with the Soudal-QuickStep team car, his race was over.
Before climbing into the vehicle, Evenepoel was seen handing bottles to fans at the roadside and passing a bidon to a young spectator — a final gesture before stepping away from his second Tour de France.
A REAL ROLE MODEL ❤️ #TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/m82Bf7eFWr
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) July 19, 2025
Evenepoel’s suffering had already bega on Thursday’s stage 12 to Hautacam, where he was dropped on the Col du Soulor, the first major climb of the day, and slipped out of the peloton with Ilan Van Wilder trying to pace him back. He limited his losses and finished seventh on the stage, but his grip on third overall was already looking fragile.
Friday’s mountain time trial delivered a further blow. Despite being the reigning world time trial champion, Evenepoel could only manage twelfth on the stage and was even caught at the finish line by Jonas Vingegaard, who had started two minutes after him. He finished nearly three minutes behind Tadej Pogačar, with his hold over third place in the GC reduced to a matter of seconds.
Speaking before Saturday’s stage, Quick-Step head coach Koen Pelgrim pointed to Evenepoel’s resilience at last year’s Vuelta a España, when after cracking in the Pyrenees, he bounced back to win two stages and claim the mountains classification.
Pelgrim acknowledged, however, that allergy problems during the Critérium du Dauphiné had disrupted Evenepoel’s training and preparation, possibly leaving him short of top condition for this Tour.
But this time, there was no comeback. The Col du Tourmalet, the climb where he lost a whopping 27 minutes to Jonas Vingegaard, ultimately unravelling his Vuelta defence, has proved to be the undoing of his hopes for a consecutive podium this time.
With Evenepoel stepping off, Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe’s Florian Lipowitz moves into the provisional lead of the best young rider competition and into third overall on the road.
Stage 14, featuring nearly 5,000 metres of climbing and slick, rain-slicked descents, has already proved to be a punishing day for many riders, with over 50km still to go at the time of writing.
Lidl-Trek’s Mattias Skjelmose crashed heavily on a traffic island around 129 kilometres from the finish. The Dane, who had already shifted his goals to the mountains classification after dropping out of GC contention, struck a sign on the exit of a roundabout. Despite attempting to continue, he slipped more than six minutes off the back and abandoned before reaching the Tourmalet.
Earlier in the day, TotalEnergies’ Steff Cras also abandoned after losing contact on the first climbs. The Belgian, one of his team’s key climbing domestiques, left the race visibly emotional.
7 thoughts on “Remco Evenepoel abandons Tour de France on the slopes of the Tourmalet”
He does right, it’s a bastard
He does right, it’s a bastard climb!
Best of the best of the best
Best of the best of the best of the best…but not good enough. Must be hard to take.
bobbinogs wrote:
How is clearly being ill “not good enough”? If he was at the top of his form and getting beaten, that would probably be hard to take, getting beaten by a virus or similar must be incredibly frustrating but not something to beat yourself up over for not being good enough.
It is not clear yet why he
It is not clear yet why he withdrew. In his own words “I have no idea, we have to investigate that now. Everyone knows I’ve had a terribly bad winter, but… Who knows, maybe there’s something wrong with my body? I can’t say,”.
Pub bike wrote:
Well yes, but the world and Olympic time trial champion does not lose 2m39s in his specialist discipline to people whom he usually beats and indeed did beat the previous week, and then withdraws whilst still holding a jersey, unless there is something seriously wrong. If it was an injury he would know about it so some form of illness would seem to be the only explanation. He is far from the only rider who has had unexpectedly to pull out so my money would be on some form of virus running through the peloton.
You can be the literal prime
You can be the literal prime mix of Merckx, Pog and Lemond, but if you’re ill, you’re ill. This ‘hard man’ macho attitude to illness belongs back in the 1970s.
This is a weird one. Still
This is a weird one. Still not clear what these allergies are, but might be severe hay fever. Must be pretty unpleasant, I feel for the lad.