Tour de France 2025 live: Grand Depart updates and stage 1 route as sprinters set for battle on streets of Lille

This is the final Tour de France to be shown live on free-to-air TV in the UK, a great pity.

Here’s Ned Boulting on why that has come to pass:

160km to go: The breakaway’s advantage is holding firm at two minutes, with the peloton determined not to let anything become too complicated here as the big sprinters’ teams eye a fast finish against one another.

A few images from the Grand Depart in Lille:

173km to go: Our early breakers are already two minutes up the road, not messing about as they look to build a genuine gap that could hold for a while, and perhaps we already have the outline of this stage at least for the foreseeable.

Alpecin–Deceuninck have already taken up station on the nose of the peloton, with Jasper Philipsen’s stage-win hopes in mind.

180km to go: Five riders immediately escape up the road: Jonas Rutsch (Intermarché-Wanty), Matis Le Berre (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Mattéo Vercher (Total Energies).

That’s four Frenchmen plus the German Rutsch. It’s not a bad group, either, so I’m not sure the peloton will want them getting too far up the road.

Christian Prudhomme pokes his head out of the sunroof, natters away on the race radio, and waves his big yellow flag. Yes, the Tour de France is officially racing!

The Tour de France officially kicks off at 1.10pm local time (12.10pm BST) and is set to conclude at 5.30pm local time (4.30pm BST).

Which sprinter to back? Take your pick: Soudal Quick-Step have essentially brought Tim Merlier, one of the fastest men in the world, to the Tour purely for this stage, with the rest of their squad more focused on Remco Evenepoel’s GC tilt.

Wout van Aert is likely to be committing himself to Jonas Vingegaard’s bid for the Tour title, and is better suited to the punchier stages anyway.

Lidl-Trek are protecting Mattias Skjelmose but Jonathan Milan has been on a roll this year – and also has pressure to prove himself as the American squad’s best sprinter, after Mads Pedersen lit up the Giro d’Italia with four stage wins.

Last year’s green jersey winner Biniam Girmay has had a leaner season so far but will be hungry to back up that phenomenal performance, but it’s hard to look past the impeccable lead-out train of Alpecin-Deceuninck and their sprinter Jasper Philipsen. But it’s the first day of the Tour and anything could happen…

Lille hosts both the start and finish of today’s stage one, which avoids the cobbled sectors of Paris-Roubaix throughout this region – no doubt to the relief of the majority of the peloton.

Three category-four climbs mean the fight for the King of the Mountains jersey also begins today, and the profile of the race suits a doomed breakaway getting some airtime for their jersey sponsors and nabbing some minor points in the polka-dot classification.

But it’s highly unlikely the sprinters’ teams will pass up the opportunity to take yellow on the opening stage of the Tour, for the first time since Alexander Kristoff won in 2020. So expect any escapees to be reeled in well in advance of the wind-up to the flat finish in the city itself, and the likes of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Lidl-Trek, and Soudal Quick-Step to control proceedings in preparation for the battle to the line.