Groves avoids crash to win Tour Stage 20

July 27,2025
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Australian Kaden Groves completed his set of grand tour stage wins when he prevailed on the Tour de France's penultimate ride, avoiding a crash on slippery roads before powering to a solo triumph on the 184.2km journey from Nantua on Saturday.

Groves's bike-handling skills were on display when he managed to stay up as Spain's Ivan Romeo and France's Romain Gregoire skidded out of control in front of him on a wet descent 21 kilometres from the finish.

The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider then attacked from a reduced breakaway bunch and never looked back in the remaining 17 kilometres, bursting into tears in a mix of disbelief and exhaustion after the line.

Groves, who gave his team their third victory in this year's Tour after Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel also won, has seven Vuelta and two Giro d'Italia stage wins to his name. Dutchman Frank van den Broek took second place, 54 seconds behind, with his compatriot Pascal Eenkhoorn third, five seconds further back.

Defending champion Tadej Pogacar spent a quiet day in the main peloton and made another step towards a fourth Tour title as he retained his overall leader's yellow jersey with a 4:24 advantage over Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard.

The final stage is a 132.3km ride from Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris, where the peloton will cycle up the famous Butte Montmartre three times before the final laps on the Champs-Elysees.

Meanwhile, according to the stage 20 report uploaded on the Tour de France website gave more details.

The elaborate battle for the breakaway

Right from the gun, Kasper Asgreen (EF Education-EasyPost) sets off. The Danish rouleur has found success on these roads before, having pulled off a hard-fought breakaway victory in Bourg-en-Bresse (stage 18, 2023), some 30 kilometres west of Nantua. The Danish goes hard under the rain but he doesn't succeed in breaking away due to the many attacks and counter-attacks shaking up the bunch.

His EF teammates, and notably Ben Healy, are very active. Harry Sweeny eventually makes a 13-man breakaway formed at km 65, as the Australian rider joins Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Ewen Costiou (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) with nine more chasers: Pascal Eenkhoorn (Soudal-Quick Step), Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Matteo Trentin (Tudor), Ivan Romeo (Movistar), Simone Velasco (XDS-Astana), Jordan Jegat (Total Energies), Frank van den Broek (Picnic-PostNL) and Jake Stewart (Israel-Premier Tech).

As Jegat threatens Ben O'Connor's 10th place in the overall standings (4'08'' of difference between them), Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) is tasked with driving the scattered bunch. Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) are momentarily dropped but the situation eventually settles. Despite a crash at km 71, the Swiss national champion controls the gap at 2'30'' at the bottom of the main climb of the day, Côte de Thésy.

Jegat accelerates on the climb. Sweeny joins him at the summit. And the Australian rider goes solo with 54 kilometres to go to the finish. He opens a gap of 40'' to his his breakaway rivals before the latter change the script. Ten riders get back together as they hit the bottom of the Côte de Longeville (cat. 4, summit 24.1km away from the finish). Costiou, Wellens and Jorgenson have been distanced.

A group of six riders emerges over the top: Grégoire, Romeo, Velasco, Groves, Stewart and Van den Broek. Grégoire accelerates on the downhill but his rivals follow. Romeo counter-attacks but he slips in a turn with 22 km to go and hits the deck. Grégoire and Velasco are also affected. Groves, Stewart and Van den Broek keep going.

With 16.5 km to go, Stewart and Van den Broek look at each other. Groves doesn't wait for them and takes off towards victory! At the finish, Van den Broek (+54'') and Eenkhoorn (+59'') complete the top 3 while Grégoire has to settle for 5th on his home roads. The peloton cross the line with a gap of over 7 minutes. Jegat takes the 10th place in the overall standings from O'Connor. REUTERS/TOUR DE FRANCE OFFICIAL WEBSITE