Tour de France | Lipowitz's Tour debut: From water carrier to beacon of hope

Florian Lipowitz is in high spirits. "I'm incredibly excited about the Tour," said the Swabian-born rider before the start of the Grand Loop. It's not his first Grand Tour. He had already attempted a Giro d'Italia, but had to abandon it in the first week due to stomach problems. Last year's Vuelta a España went better. He helped out the Slovenian overall winner, Primož Roglič, to a respectable 7th place.

Public expectations are also on a par with this level ahead of the Tour. Some German media outlets are already seeing the 24-year-old as a new Jan Ullrich. Lipowitz is also attracting attention abroad. After his third-place finish at the Tour de Dauphiné in mid-June, the French sports newspaper "L'Équipe" hailed him as "the German with the big engine."

Quite logically in the media's competition to outdo one another, the Süddeutsche Zeitung saw him as the "secret captain" of his Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe racing team in this Tour. The Munich-based team was likely alluding to the scenario of the 2021 Tour de France. Back then, Roglič, the favorite for the overall victory, was eliminated after several crashes. His then largely unknown deputy, Jonas Vingegaard, at the Jumbo-Visma racing team, finished second straight away and later won the Tour twice. At least one factor: crashes by Roglič, now in the Red Bull uniform, are not unlikely. The Slovenian also did not finish the Tour in 2022 and 2024. He also withdrew from this spring's Giro d'Italia due to crashes.

This also worries team boss Ralph Denk. He notes that his top rider has deficient handling skills. "He didn't practice cycling as a child. He was a ski jumper. And I don't think you can learn such things afterward," Denk said in a media briefing before the Tour.

He doesn't see these disadvantages as quite so great for Lipowitz, who also came from winter sports: "Florian isn't doing badly so far. And without being an expert in biomechanics, I can blame it on the thin cross-country skis. They're quite downhill, and that might help more than standing on the wide jumping skis," he said, comparing his two winter sports converts.

When going uphill, Lipowitz is roughly on par with Roglič anyway. He already indicated this at the 2024 Vuelta, the only stage race they have contested together so far. There, he occasionally waited for the leader to bring him back to the front after brief moments of weakness. Lipowitz indicated at the 2025 Dauphiné that he can also outpace Grand Tour winners if the directeurs sportifs give him free rein. There, he distanced himself from former Belgian Vuelta winner and Olympic time trial champion Remco Evenepoel, finishing in third place ahead of the Belgian, beaten only by the Tour-winning duo of Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) and Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia).

There are quite a few who believe he can do similar things in the Tour. "He's super strong and has a really good chance of being at the front," said Emanuel Buchmann, the last German professional cyclist to come close to the Tour podium, finishing fourth overall.

Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, however, is putting the brakes on when it comes to the fans' high expectations. "We want to proceed cautiously with the young man. In the past, I was accused of being a bit too aggressive with Dominik Nerz. We definitely want to do things differently now," Denk said, referring to the premature end to the career of another German climbing talent in his ranks due to falls and depression. His first resolution for Lipowitz was therefore: "The goal is for him to reach Paris." What happens along the way, how well Lipowitz fulfills the nominal role of supporter, how much he grows beyond that, is one of the most exciting questions of this Tour.

Lipowitz himself also has a lot of confidence in his teammate, who is eleven years older and has 14 Grand Tours more experience. "Knowing Primož, the second Grand Tour of the year usually goes better than the first. So I'm betting the Tour will go quite well for us," he said. "For us," mind you, that includes an entire racing team.