MURET, France (Velo) — Florian Lipowitz is the sensation of the Tour de France, emerging as a legitimate GC threat and jolting German cycling back to life.
The 24-year-old Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe climber has barnstormed into third overall, and with a week to go, he is carrying the white jersey and the dreams of a cycling superpower on his shoulders.
Not since Jan Ullrich or Andreas Klöden has a German rider lit up the GC this deep into the race.
Now, after two weeks of steady climbing and smart racing, Lipowitz is knocking on the podium door in his Tour debut.
“When I came to the Tour, I never thought about fighting for the podium,” Lipowitz said. “I knew I was in good shape, and now I’m third and I have the white jersey, I can only be happy.”
Everyone was holding their collective breath Sunday when Lipowitz hit the deck early in the stage.
Luckily, he rolled on and entered the Tour’s final throes in pole position to score Germany’s first podium in 20 years.
Germany’s new diamond in rough
Lipowitz is the breakout story of this Tour.
Mentored by Primož Roglič and fueled by Red Bull’s deep pockets and technical support, he started in Lille far off the radar, but insiders knew he was a name to watch.
With a string of top finishes, including third at the Critérium du Dauphiné in June, Lipowitz is confirming his GC promise.
“I am not surprised. He’s been good all year,” Red Bull teammate Laurence Pithie told Velo at Sunday’s start. “It’s a matter of holding your form and getting a little better as the season’s gone along.”
Florian Lipowitz has landed in the White Jersey. He’s now the favourite to finish 3rd in Paris.#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/RAPviiBsY0
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) July 19, 2025
Roglič started as the team captain, but Lipowitz had a free role. Pithie said he deserves the status as the Tour’s rising star.
“He’s new to the sport, but he hasn’t just shown up,” Pithie said. “He’s been getting better and better. Anything can happen in the long final week in the Alps. We’ve been going well so far, and we’re going to keep protecting both Lipo and Roglič.”
Lipowitz’s rise is also a boon for German cycling, and the press room is suddenly full of German journalists covering the Tour not seen since the days of Ullrich.
And he’s the fresh face Red Bull needs riding toward Paris.
‘No pressure, enjoy the race’
Red Bull knows it has something special in Lipowitz, a former biathlete who came to cycling relatively late in his teens.
Red Bull sports director Enrico Gasparotto says there’s no pressure from the team because everyone knows he’s a long-term project.
“This is his first Tour de France, so he has to enjoy it,” Gasparotto told Velo. “We want him to follow the momentum and follow the race, without thinking too much about tomorrow, and we’ll see where we go from there.”
— Velon CC (@VelonCC) July 20, 2025
Gasparotto said Lipowitz — who rode in with the GC group Sunday to defend third at 7:53 behind Pogačar — proved he’s ready for the Tour.
He DNF’d in his grand tour debut at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, but he rebounded at the Vuelta a España last year, riding support for Roglič and still finishing a rock-solid seventh overall.
After his sensational spring, no one’s surprised to see him riding deep into this Tour. Everyone’s curious to see how he holds up in the Tour’s third week.
“After 14 stages, I think we are in a good space,” Gasparotto said. “There’s still quite a lot to do. We have done only three days of mountains, so almost anything can happen in the Alps in the final week.”
From biathlon to bikes
Lipo fever is also just what Red Bull needs.
The budding German super team bet the bank on Roglič when Red Bull came on as the new title sponsor and majority owner of the team to start 2024, but the aging Slovenian is simply a placeholder for a new generation.
There’s constant chatter of the imminent arrival of Remco Evenepoel — a deal now that largely depends on whether the Belgian wants to break his contract or stay loyal to Soudal Quick-Step — but the long-range vision of the team is to build its new generation of stars.
Team boss Ralph Denk told Velo that Red Bull is in it for the long run, and they want to make an impact on the Tour.
That means that Red Bull is investing in young talent and shopping on the open market for top riders.
“You have two options,” Denk told Velo. “To try to find one on the market and make them better. Or build some new guys up from the rookies.”
Terrible start of the day. Alaphilippe went down hard on a cobbled (wtf) traffic island and hurt his shoulder, Lipowitz went down also. They’re both continuing the race but Loulou is looking quite bad.#TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/QNve6FbLSr
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) July 20, 2025
Lipowitz is neither. Hailing from Ulm in south central Germany, he isn’t a direct product of the team’s well-funded talent schools, but rather came across from the sport of biathlon.
Denk shared the story about how Lipowitz reached out to Denk when he was a teenager to say he wanted to be a pro cyclist.
Denk heard through the grapevine that Lipowitz was making waves in the local endurance community as a rising talent in biathlon — the Euro-centric sport that combines Nordic skiing and rifle shooting — and Denk said, sure, let’s meet at my office.
Lipowitz showed up at the appointed hour decked out in cycling kit, Denk asked where he’d ridden from. Lipowitz replied that he came straight after class, 100km away. That left a positive impression.
“He was not in our rookie structure, but I found him in biathlon, which is very popular in our area,” Denk told Velo.
“Everything that’s happened now is the cherry on the cake. So he’s sitting in the top 5. This is already super nice for the first Tour.”
Final week test: ‘Anything can happen’
With Pogačar and Vingegaard battling for yellow, the final podium spot is the realistic target.
Lipowitz enters the second rest day with about one and a half minutes ahead of fourth-place Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL) and more than two minutes on Kévin Vacquelin (Arkea B&B).
All three are under 25 and pushing the podium limits for the first time.
“With these younger riders, anything can happen in the third week,” Gasparotto told Velo. “Things can change fast one way or another. We are happy with how things are going.”
Lipowitz is trying not to look too far down the road.
“There was a small crash and I was involved. I went down but it’s nothing,” Lipowitz said Sunday. “I was super happy that the team gave everything to bring me back. After the whole week, I’m happy we get a rest day.”
If he can keep following the right moves and have the legs to survive Mont Ventoux on Tuesday and the Alps to close out this Tour, Germany’s first Tour podium since Klöden.
Red Bull is trying to calm everyone down, but Lipowitz is this Tour’s breakout star.
Though he’s not an overnight sensation, he’s trajectory is upward and improving: Stagiaire in 2022, WorldTour in 2023, with his first pro wins that season with two stages and the GC at the Czech Tour. Last year, he hit the podium at the Tour de Romandie and finished the Vuelta in seventh.
Everything in cycling is about momentum, and right now, Lipowitz has the Big Mo.
“Two weeks are almost done, but everyone knows the third week is the hardest,” Lipowitz said. “The stages look very tough with a lot of climbing. We have to see how the legs are. I hope they stay the same.”
But no matter how the GC shakes out, Germany and Red Bull have their new star.