Thursday, July 17, 2025: Auch - Hautacam, 180.6 km - Arrival in the Pyrenees and first HC summit finish certain to change the narrative in one way or another
The elongated first week has been far from easy or sedate, but the Tour de France reaches new heights on Thursday, as stage 12 welcomes the first hors catégorie climb of the race with a finish atop the climb to Hautacam in the heart of the Pyrenees.
The GC has already kicked into action in the first 11 days of the Tour, with significant gaps between the favourites already due to plenty of attacking racing on the shorter climbs that peppered the first week, but the first real mountains will begin to expose more gaps.
Stage 12 starts in Auch and heads south down into the Pyrenees, with 180.6km on the menu. The first 120km of the stage is almost completely flat, save for a 1.3km category 4 climb after 85km, with the climbing really backloaded in the day.
The first of three key climbs, the cat. 1 Col du Soulor (11.8km at 7.3%) starts with just under 60km to go, and should kick off an eventful finale. From the top, the riders descend for around 7km, and then the road kicks up again for the cat. 2 Col des Bordères, which is 3.1km at a 7.7% average.
From there, it's downhill for some 20km before the main event: the Hautacam. The first HC climb of the race, the climb to Hautacam, is 13.5km long with a testing average of 7.8%, though several sections tip over the 10 and 11% mark.
Climbing up to 1,520m altitude, it's not the biggest climb in the race, but Hautacam is a longer, challenging climb that will test the riders' proper climbing abilities for the first time in this race, and set the scene for the stages and mountains to come.
Whether they're battling for the win or that goes to the breakaway, the GC riders are guaranteed to fight up this climb, as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) will look to assert dominance, whilst Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) looks to fight back after being on the back foot so far, and already 1:17 down on his perennial rival.
Even though these two have shared the last five Tour titles between them, this is not a two-horse race. For everyone else, especially those who are perhaps not as punchy as Pogačar and Vingegaard, Hautacam will be a big test of everyone's climbing legs against the two favourites.
Good memories for Vingegaard, question marks for Pogačar
Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey during the 2022 Tour de France finishes the stage to Hautacam celebrating the victory (Image credit: Getty Images)
Despite Pogačar going into the second week with all the advantages – time, two stage wins and a stint in the yellow jersey already – there are also reasons for Vingegaard to be confident heading into stage 12, not least because of what happened here last time.
The Tour's last visit to Hautacam was in 2022, where the climb was the site of one of Vingegaard's most memorable triumphs over Pogačar. It's not the Col de Granon or Col de la Loze of 'I'm gone, I'm dead' fame, but it was a day where the Dane – already 2:18 in the lead – stamped his authority on the race and put the nail in the coffin of Pogačar.
Thanks to an unworldly assist from Wout van Aert, Vingegaard attacked 3.6km from the top to leave Pogačar behind and take another minute on the Slovenian, all but sealing his first Tour de France overall victory.
In recent years, the all-around prowess of Pogačar, who has won the last two Grand Tours he's raced and much more in between, gives him the upper hand between the two rivals. However, Hautacam should be a timely reminder that Vingegaard is a rider more than capable of dominant mountain performances, and this is where he usually comes into his own over the Slovenian.
What's more, Pogačar has suffered a few strokes of misfortune that could bring the scales closer to balance as the Hautacam comes into view. Firstly, he lost key mountain domestique João Almeida over the weekend, and his other climbing support riders have seemed to falter. Visma, meanwhile, look stronger and more motivated than ever.
Secondly, the world champion crashed in the finale of stage 11, going down heavily on his side on the run-in to Toulouse, and though a gentleman's agreement up ahead ensured he didn't lose time, he did lose some skin, and potentially some sleep or at least comfort ahead of the Hautacam.
A few days ago, one might have predicted that Pogačar would go on the offensive on the Hautacam and start to run away with this Tour, but right now, there's zero reason to count Vingegaard out.
Will the best of the rest emerge?
Remco Evenepoel at the team presentation before the stage (Image credit: Getty Images)
The conversation will naturally focus on Pogačar and Vingegaard, who have been itching to duel it out on a big climb in this race, but there are also the other GC contenders to consider.
For Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), the first big climb of the race is going to be a huge test of how he is climbing, with big ascents always his undoing in Grand Tours. With no more flat TTs to come, he has no chances to claw back any time he loses, and if he falters here, his rivals will go for the hammer blow in the mountains to come.
Current race leader Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) also faces a big challenge. Can he stay in yellow? Not a pure climber, and only 29 seconds ahead of Pogačar, the feeling is probably no, but his team were bullish on the rest day, and it's clear they're not just going to give up. It's entirely possible that he could cling on, and that will be a big story within the story.
More importantly, though, what Hautacam will tell us is who else is really in contention for the podium. Outside of Pogačar and Vingegaard, who have gone head to head already in this race, the shape of the rest of the top 10 has not yet formed, so expect stage 12 to start guiding that narrative.
The breakaway question
After losing 15 minutes in the first week of the Tour de France, Ben O'Connor has been racing for a stage win (Image credit: Getty Images)
Of course, outside of the GC battle, there is also the small question of who will win the stage? It could be that the favourites are battling for both time and the win, but stage 12 is also one almost calling out for a breakaway, especially with a number of former GC hopefuls now out of that battle and chasing stage wins.
For riders who are pure climbers, or came into this racing aiming at the overall but have since dropped out, these big climbing days are really their only hope at success, so it is certain that a strong and motivated group will try to go up the road on Thursday afternoon.
The last few Grand Tours have shown us that mountain break success is becoming less and less common – in 2024, only one break actually survived to take the win in a Tour mountain stage – but stage 12 in particular could be better suited to it.
"I think first of all, these Pyrenean stages, there's quite a lot of flat beforehand [ahead of the climb], so that can create an opportunity to create the gap already before you hit the mountains," explained Ben O'Connor, who is now hunting a stage win after his GC bid crumbled after a crash.
Stage 12, with nearly 120km of flat roads, is a great example of that, where if a strong group goes fairly early, they have a long time to build up a good buffer. On stages where there is a lot of climbing, the peloton tends to keep breakaways closer, or just accidentally bring them back as they battle amongst each other, but Thursday's stage is not like that.
Of course, the GC teams may still work to keep a group close and go for the win themselves, but with time gaps and GC gains – and losses – almost guaranteed anyway, stage 12 could be prime for the third breakaway win of this race so far.
Stage 12 map and profile
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Stage 12 profile(Image credit: A.S.O.)
(Image credit: Geoatlast)
As the Tour de France enters the Pyrenees on stage 12, the riders will take on the first hors catégorie ascent of the race on the summit finish to Hautacam (13.5km at 7.8%). This will be the first real opportunity for the GC contenders to put time into each other, with one of the favourites likely to make a move on the final climb.
Prior to reaching the final climb, the riders will take on the category one Col du Soulor (11.8km at 7.3%) and the category two Col des Bordères (3.1km at 7.7%), with the favourites’ teams likely to set a hard pace to soften the legs of their rivals before reaching the foot of the Hautacam.
The slopes of the Hautacam have been crucial in deciding the race throughout the years, as three of the last five winners on the climb have gone on to win the maillot jaune in Paris, with Bjarne Riis in 1996, Vincenzo Nibali in 2014 and Jonas Vingegaard in 2023.
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Matilda is an NCTJ-qualified journalist based in the UK who joined Cyclingnews in March 2025. Prior to that, she worked as the Racing News Editor at GCN, and extensively as a freelancer contributing to Cyclingnews, Cycling Weekly, Velo, Rouleur, Escape Collective, Red Bull and more. She has reported from many of the biggest events on the calendar, including the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France Femmes, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. She has particular experience and expertise in women's cycling, and women's sport in general. She is a graduate of modern languages and sports journalism.
