Abandon of experienced Tour de France domestique Cattaneo puts extra pressure on Evenepoel and an already underpowered Quick-Step team.

Olympic and world time trial champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) duly delivered on his stage favourite status on stage 5 of the Tour de France, powering to victory in the 33km time trial in Caen as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took yellow.

Remco Evenepoel is clearly the man to beat in stage five. The Olympic and world time trial champion was superb at the Dauphine where he took 20 seconds out of Jonas Vingegaard and was 48 seconds ahead of Tadej Pogacar. And with no Filippo Ganna or Stefan Bissegger after their stage one crashes it is hard to look beyond the big three.

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.

A three-week Grand Tour will always contain natural ebbs and flows, and, for much of Monday’s stage between Valenciennes and Dunkirk, it looked as if the peloton had declared an unofficial rest day, with the riders happy to cruise back towards the coast after a weekend of wind, rain and intensity.

A star-studded peloton are set for a three-week battle royale over lumps, bumps and mountains as the Tour de France gets underway. This year’s Grand Depart is held in Lille in northern France with stage one beginning and ending in the city near the border with Belgium.