Remco Evenepoel stormed back into contention for a place on the final podium at the 2025 Tour de France, winning the 33km time trial around Caen and marking a huge turnaround after a difficult opening stage.

Evenepoel, the reigning time trial Olympic and world champion, was expected to win the stage in the absence of time trial specialists — Filippo Ganna and Stefan Bissegger, who both crashed and exited the race on the first day of the Tour last week.

In fact it truly kicked off yesterday, with Tadej Pogacar putting a handful more seconds into his rivals to move level on time with race leader Mathieu van der Poel by claiming his 18th Tour stage win and the 100th of his frankly ludicrously brilliant career.