Talossan Cycling Association Tour Season 4 Leg 2: Lille -> Paris

[Glüc]

Van Aert attacking solo! Is he gonna make it? And will that be enough for EVC to win? I dont know, but I hope you all watching because its very exciting

[Glüc]

Van Aert (EVC) wins the final stage!

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 21 Mantes-la-Ville  ›  Paris (Champs-Élysées)

As Glüc already noted, yesterday's final stage was won by Wout van Aert (EVC), ahead of a trio that included Tadej Pogacar (4th, CFA/CHX/CJO/GHS/PTM). EVC completed a strong stage finish by also placing Jorgenson 5th, while GHS and CHX had Vauquelin finish 8th. Lastly, PTM's Kaden Groves got 11th by winning a reduced sprint that also included Abrahamsen (CJO/GHS, 16th), Alaphilippe (CHX/GHS, 19th) and Laurance (BDC, 20th).

Naturally, Velocostă wins the day, with GHST placing several riders in the point to finish second, slightly ahead of PTM and CHX. But most notably, Fieschă followed up stage 20's temporary gain of points over the Belacostans by unfortunately only scoring with Pogacar, leaving it far behind EVC and ending their bid for a leg victory.

As such, the following is the situation before EOT points are applied:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	8081	+300
2nd	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	7731	+333
3rd	(+3)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	7644	+500
4th	(-1)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	7626	+322
5th	(-1)		Cézembre Fieschǎ (CFA)	7449	+264
6th	(-1)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	7244	+90
7th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	7059	+269
8th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	6767	+108
9th	(=)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	5535	+101
10th	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	5451	+197

[Sir Lüc]

FINAL STANDINGS (with End of Tour points)

Not much of a surprise if you followed virtual standings, but there it is: Esqipă Velocostă wins TCAT France 2025! It therefore becomes the second team to win multiple legs, after Banqeu da Cézembre, and the first one to win in Italy and France back-to-back, giving them a shot at winning all three legs in a single season (although BDC already won all three legs back-to-back, but across two different seasons).

The three teams who had any chance to win (by scoring a meaningful amount of End of Tour points) all leapfrog the hitherto leading duo, but their EoT point differences are too slim to swap them around. Port Maxhestic, then, has to settle for second, which is still their best result in a TCAT leg after their two Spanish third places in 2023 and 2024. And Fieschă, TCAT France's defending champion, was still able to secure a valiant third place.

Much like what happened with GHST in Italy, Cyclohexane led the standings from stage 2 to 21, but its limited EoT point intake (especially due to Evenepoel and van der Poel's dual retirements) doomed it for the overall win and narrowly made it miss out even on a podium spot right at the end. And lastly, GHST itself saw something basically identical happen, with the added injuries to Jeanniere and Rodriguez additionally making it extremely unlikely it would even manage to edge out CHX despite its long chase atop the standings.

Pos	±		Team	Pts	EoT
1st	(+2)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	9449	+1805
2nd	(+2)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	9336	+1710
3rd	(+2)		Cézembre Fieschǎ (CFA)	9229	+1780
4th	(-3)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	9181	+1100
5th	(-3)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	8861	+1130
6th	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	8494	+1250
7th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	8364	+1305
8th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	7647	+880
9th	(=)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	6635	+1100
10th	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	6065	+615

The winning margin, 113 points, is almost the smallest we've ever seen (Italy 2023, 112pts, CHX over BDC), and additionally comes off the bat of two other historically tight editions (Spain 2024, 211pts BDC over GHS and Italy 2025, 214pts EVC over VFL). But the margins were tight all around, as this is the first edition in which 6 teams finished fewer than 1000 points from the lead, while previously at best just the podium teams managed to do so.

[Sir Lüc]

SIDE CLASSIFICATIONS

Some interesting results in the side classifications: VFL wins the Sprinters's Classification almost by default due to holding Points Classification winner Jonathan Milan. Vaguely unexpectedly, GHST gets second place despite their elected sprinter crashing out injured early on, thanks to Jonas Abrahamsen taking home a surprising amount of intermediate sprint points.

The Climbers's Classification was won by Fieschă, much like last year, with Pogacar and Vingegaard providing the bulk of the points. What made the difference with runner-up PTM, who held the same duo, was however Ben Healy, who proved to have evolved into a surprisingly solid climber, even if not ready for seriously contesting the general classification yet.

And lastly the ever unpredictable combativity classification goes to REX, by quite some margin - @King Txec 's team proves adept at racking up breakaway riders after already winning this same classification once before. This time, it is Lenny Martinez who made the difference, scoring by himself the whole gap to second place in his (failed) quest to win the polkadot jersey.


SPRINTERS'S CLASSIFICATION - first win by VFL and second in any side classification after 2023 France combativity
(intermediate sprint points + daily points' classification points)
Velociposse Florencia 799
Gordon Hiatus Support Team 555
Cyclohexane 448
Port Maxhestic AC 403
Naziun Cjovani 362
Cézembre Fieschǎ 351
Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs 279
Els Talossaes Rexhitais 150
Esqipă Velocostă 120
Dirnalaiset Mortescu 118


CLIMBERS'S CLASSIFICATION - second win by CFA after France 2024
(summit points + daily KOM points)
Cézembre Fieschǎ 855
Port Maxhestic AC 780
Naziun Cjovani 520
Gordon Hiatus Support Team 486
Cyclohexane 483
Esqipă Velocostă 470
Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs 464
Els Talossaes Rexhitais 379
Dirnalaiset Mortescu 378
Velociposse Florencia 349


COMBATIVITY CLASSIFICATION - second win by REX after Italy 2024 (contested as SOS)
(20 pts per breakaway rider)
Els Talossaes Rexhitais 200
Gordon Hiatus Support Team 120
Naziun Cjovani 100
Port Maxhestic AC 80
Cyclohexane 80
Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs 80
Cézembre Fieschǎ 60
Velociposse Florencia 60
Esqipă Velocostă 40
Dirnalaiset Mortescu 20

[Glüc]

Two in a row. Congratulations Mic'haglh!

Bad luck for Port Maxhestic who looked so close to their first win saturday and for Cyclohexane who were leading for most of it.

The other teams should probably start thinking about how to put a stop to this winning streak before Vuelta...

[Sir Lüc]

SEASON STANDINGS

Lastly, here's a recap of where we stand two-thirds of the way into the 2025 season:

(± ignores non-returning teams)

Pos	±		Team	Pts
1st	(=)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	18064
2nd	(+3)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	16427
3rd	(+1)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	16369
4th	(-2)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	16051
5th	(+2)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	15749
6th	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	15220
7th	(+2)		Cézembre Fieschǎ (CFA)	14577
8th	(-5)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	14092
9th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	13390
10th	(-2)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	12798

Unsurprisingly, EVC retains the lead, having won both legs. They are in an excellent position to win the season overall as well, due to the other teams making up the podiums of both legs having generally alternating fortunes (indeed, currently third-placed GHS did not make the podium of either leg). Technically all is up for grabs, but this 1600+ points lead seems difficult to overcome unless EVC has a weak showing, and even then we'd have to see a reversal to bigger gaps in the standings for some other team to actually leapfrog EVC.

BONUS: ALL-TIME STAGE WINNERS

Ever wondered if we ever tracked how many daily/stage wins each team ever got? The answer is no... until now.

Team	Stage Wins	2022	2023	2024	2025 (2/3)
Banqeu da Cézembre	48	11	15	20	2
Gordon Hiatus Support Team	31	6	5	11	9
Els Gagnheirs	16	5	11	-	-
Velociposse Florencia	16	3	4	4	5
Cyclohexane	15	-	8	2	5
Naziun Cjovani	15	12	2	0	1
Port Maxhestic AC	15	-	3	9	3
Cézembre Fieschă	13	-	2	9	2
Maricopa Cabana Boys	12	-	7	3	2
Esqipă Velocostă	8	-	-	-	8
Dead Last	7	-	3	4	0
Rexhitais/Cantzelerïă	6	-	1	1	4
Kinetic Racing	4	3	0	-	1
els Averatxeirs	2	-	2	-	0
Valcürïăs	2	2	0	-	-

(Manilows and Ardita contested two and one legs respectively but did not get a daily win.)

[Tric’hard Lenxheir]

Look at me go!!! Just living up to the team name!!!

[Sir Lüc]

Look at me go!!! Just living up to the team name!!!

Just to be clear, you're in last place in the combined season standings, you did not finish last in the France leg:p

[Tric’hard Lenxheir]

Just to be clear, you're in last place in the combined season standings, you did not finish last in the France leg:p

I tried really hard LOL