Tour de France 2025 - Stage 5: Voigt's preview: Power in the battle against the clock

Stage 5 | Wednesday, 9 July 2025 | Caen - Caen | 33 kilometres (individual time trial) | 200 vertical metres

Jens Voigt's assessment of stage 5

The first of two individual time trials of this tour is on the programme today - a short but important stage. The route is 33 kilometres long with the start and finish in Caen. The profile is hilly, but not really difficult. For the most part, the riders will be travelling on wide and well-maintained roads. In my eyes, it's a day for the specialists. These big, strong riders with a lot of power will decide the day's victory among themselves. But it would also be an opportunity for Olympic time trial champion Remco Evenepoel from Belgium, who could make time today against his main rivals in the general classification such as Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar.

In the past, we always had two individual time trials, none of them less than 50 kilometres. The relatively short distance is the trend. The organiser A.S.O. no longer wants a good time trial rider to make up a lot of time, they want to keep the race more exciting and open, ideally until the 20th stage. In this time trial, the start and finish are cleverly located at the same place. This makes it easier for the teams because the sporting directors are back at the start quickly with the support car and there are not 30 kilometres of transfer between the finish and the start. And the team bus is parked in Caen. The riders can stay there before the start and shower after the race.

Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of stage 5 of the Tour de France 2025

• Start first rider: 13:10
• Start last rider: 17:05
• TV broadcast: ARD 14:10-17:55, Eurosport 1 13:00-17:30
• Live stream: sportschau.de, Discovery Plus (fee required)
• All stages of the Tour de France 2025 at a glance
• TOUR at the Tour de France: Exclusive live blog - insights behind the scenes

Highlights of the 5th stage

• 13:10: Now the first starter starts the race, in reverse order of the overall classification.
• 17:10: The last starter rolls off the start ramp: the wearer of the yellow jersey. The start intervals for the best riders are two minutes. Ride time: approx. 37 minutes

TOUR expert Jens Voigt

Nobody in the German-speaking world knows the Tour de France better: Jens Voigt competed in the most important cycling race as a professional a total of 17 times between 1998 and 2014. Only the Frenchman Sylvain Chavanel, the current record holder, has managed one more participation. Voigt knows the race from the perspective of the winner and the tireless helper in the team. He won two stages himself and wore the yellow jersey for one day each in 2001 and 2005. In 2010, as a team-mate in Team Saxo Bank, he accompanied Luxembourg's Andy Schleck to his overall victory (after the doping disqualification of Alberto Contador, who initially came first; editor's note). The 53-year-old Berliner currently works as a brand ambassador for the bike manufacturer Trek and as a pundit for the Eurosport channel.

For TOUR readers, the former pro gives his predictions for the course of the 21 stages, points out difficulties and things worth seeing. For each day's stage, he gives a tip on what role the course could play in the final standings in the individual classifications in Paris. If three of the jerseys are coloured, this means that this day could be decisive for this classification - i.e. overall classification (yellow), sprint/points classification (green) and classification of the best climber (red dotted jersey). We also give you the broadcast times of the TV channels in Germany (ARD and Eurosport) and their live streams - plus tips on when it might be particularly worth tuning in.