Things aren’t clicking for Jasper Philipsen at this Tour de France. The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider is a 10-time stage winner, a former green jersey wearer, but from two sprints this edition, he’s only managed to scrape a pair of fifth places.

The results have left him baffled, wondering why he’s not at his best. “We just have to look into it,” Philipsen said after stage seven in Bordeaux. “The only thing I can say is that I did everything I could, I rode as fast as possible, but it was not fast enough.”

Victory on Friday’s seventh stage went to Soudal Quick-Step’s Tim Merlier. To get back to his team bus post-race, Philipsen had to ride past Merlier’s, parked closer to the finish line on the bank of the Garonne river, where fans had begun to congregate to celebrate his win.

It's a scene that Philipsen has grown used to having around him at the Tour over the years; in each of his last four participations, he has won at least one stage. In 2023, he won four.

So what’s going wrong? Where’s the sprinter that, just three years ago, won on the same stretch of road outside Bordeaux's Place de la Bourse?

“I don’t know,” Philipsen said. “It was a really good lead-out. Everybody did what they were capable of and it was a really amazing team effort, so I’m really happy with that. But of course, disappointed with my own legs, my own sprint. That was just not how it should be and how my legs should be.”

After stage five in Pau, won by Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), Philipsen spoke of a similar lack of power. “I was quickly on the limit – not how I normally feel in a bunch sprint,” he had said.

But neither then, nor on Friday, was his tone downcast. If anything, he leant more towards optimism. “We just take it day by day,” he said. “Hopefully in the coming days it will come.”

It bears reminding that the opening week of this year’s Tour has been more attritional than usual.

Philipsen won stage one's bunch sprint in Lille last year, earning the race’s first yellow jersey, but this time round he had to wait until day five for his first shot at a flat finish. Already, he has faced an arduous team time trial, a hilltop finish, two mountain stages, and a near-40°C day.

Perhaps it’s the heat that has held back his punch? “The heat is there for everybody,” he said, quick to avoid excuses. “It’s been really demanding for the body, the muscles are sore, but we try to tackle it as well as possible. So far, it’s going OK.”

Philipsen’s Alpecin-Premier Tech sports director, Christoph Roodhooft, also saw no clear reason for the missed sprint opportunities. “If we could explain it, it would not happen,” he said.

“The lead-out was all perfect [in Bordeaux], nothing to say about it. Jasper launched his sprint, and he could not take up the speed he usually has.

“We do not blame Jasper,” Roodhooft continued. “It’s just what it is. It’s sport and he’s human.”

Fortunately, Philipsen and his team will not have to wait long for their next sprint opportunity; Saturday’s eighth stage to Bergerac offers another flat finish, another chance to taste victory at the Tour.

It took him until stage 10 to win in 2024. He then went on to win twice more in that edition. Don’t write off Philipsen just yet.

After demolishing his Tour de France rivals and taking the yellow jersey at Gavarnie-Gèdre on Thursday, Tadej Pogačar enjoyed an uneventful stage seven, finishing the day still sitting pretty 2:42 ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), with Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) taking the bunch sprint win.

You get the impression this will be the first of many straightforward days in yellow lying ahead for UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Pogačar. Even on the high mountain stages where his rivals could take him on at his own game, it feels as though something exceptional will need to happen even for someone to take a small chunk of his lead from him.

For many race followers, the only chance of overturning Pogačar would seem to be if he has a bad day, or crashes – with the latter being a scenario that even Vingegaard's fans wouldn't wish for.

Along those lines, he was asked after stage seven about his bad day on the Col du Granon in 2022, when he ceded the yellow jersey to Vingegaard, finishing the stage 2:51 behind the Dane – an uncannily similar amount of time to that by which he leads the race now.

That day he was the victim of a poor feeding strategy. How had he evolved since that day four years ago, he was asked.

"If I look at my physical capabilities, of course I'm a bit better than back then," he told journalists. "My mind is growing as well, and [my] experience."

However, he added: "I think one of the biggest changes that we could do as a team is organisation around the feeding and having really good hydration and nutrition [plan]."

That included regulating his body temperature, he said, describing the current race as "hellish hot". Indeed, on the day of stage seven, the finishing city of Bordeaux was sizzling in 37-degree temperatures.

"This Tour is hellish hot, [but] for sure my body temperature is cooler than it was in 2022 or any before, because we really keep focused on cooling down," he said. "I think that's a big difference. Just planning, organisation and motivation for the next few days is very different to what it was in 2022."

In theory, then, we won't be seeing Pogačar losing yellow to a blood-sugar crash again in the next two weeks like he did that day in 2022. That said, his team no doubt believed they had their strategies nailed that day too. Best laid plans, as they say. It's a hoary old rider favourite, but there's no denying the sheer factual correctness of the phrase, "the Tour isn't over till it's over". We'll all have to wait and see.

As he crossed the line in Bordeaux first on stage seven of the 2026 Tour de France on Friday, there was enormous relief for Tim Merlier.

The Soudal Quick-Step rider didn't scream, get carried away, that's not his style; instead, he dusted off both shoulders, as if he'd had an intense case of dandruff halfway through the day.

There was a meaning behind the gesture, of course, more complicated than the traditional hands-in-the-air approach. It was about proving he had taken the pressure of his svelte shoulders.

"We had a meeting before the Tour, before the TTT on the bus, and the CEO, Jurgen Forë put a bit too much pressure on my shoulders," Merlier explained in his winner's press conference.

You can picture the scene, the team boss wanting to see success on the biggest stage, and applying it a bit to thickly. The thing is, Merlier does always deliver at the Tour, something the 33-year-old was keen to point out. He's raced three Tours de France, and won at least one stage at each of them, it's not a bad record.

However, things have not been easy this year, or even at this Tour. On Thursday, Bert Van Lerberghe, Merlier's leadout man, abandoned on the Col du Tourmalet.

"I missed him a bit in the stage, and I think we're going to miss him even more in the other stages too," the winner explained. "For sure I miss him, with Bert there's a bit more space in the bunch, because he's a big guy."

2026 did not start simply, with the Belgian not racing until late March due to a knee injury, so the whole season has been an uphill battle.

"It was a difficult start of the season, it was a bit annoying, that I couldn't start the season like usual," he explained. "When I was back in competition, I won Scheldeprijs, so I knew my sprint level was still there. To go to the Tour was big pressure. Everything was going well, but I missed two months of training, so it's always scary to go to the highest level of cycling. My sprint is still there, so I'm happy."

However, the biggest thing working against Merlier, according to him, is not his slow start to the year, or his missing teammate, but how hard this route is, and how few opportunities there are for the fast men. Time is running out for them to make a dent on this Tour, already. The first bunch sprint didn't come until stage five, while the last could feasibly be stage 11.

"After the third place in the first sprint stages, I knew I only had four or five opportunities left, and once a rider wins, he normally takes a second one," Merlier said of his chances. "You start to be scared, because there aren't a lot of opportunities, but I'm really happy I can take another win here.

"I remember when I was younger there was a lot more opportunities, and I also saw that this is the hardest Tour in years, so if you're here, as a sprinter, you feel it will be a hard three weeks. Let's hope for the rest of my career I can go to Grand Tours and have opportunities, otherwise it would be just nor possible for us any more in cycling.

Belgian Tim Merlier took his fourth Tour de France career stage win in Bordeaux on Friday after an unmatched sprint alongside the Garonne river on stage seven.

The Soudal Quick-Step rider timed his effort to perfection, leaving it late to make his move as the peloton sprinted into a headwind.

It had looked as though Alpecin-Premier Tech were in control of the sprint, as Matthieu van der Poel - so often a potent lead-out man for Jasper Philipsen - hit the front with around 600 metres to go. 100 metres later and the Dutchman started his sprint, but this proved too early. Van der Poel swung off with 250 metres to go, leaving his sprinter Philipsen sprinting into the wind.

At this point Merlier was still sitting in fifth wheel, out of the wind behind Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling) and Fernando Gaviria (Caja Rural). He eventually made his move with 150 metres to go, coming out of the slipstream and surging past his rivals to a clear win ahead of Uno-X-Mobility's Søren Wærenskjold. Philipsen, winner of ten Tour stages since 2022 finished fifth.

"Perfectly? I don’t know. It was a mess to get in position but I made it thanks to the team," Merlier said post-race.

"For a long time I was following Jasper [Stuyven] but I lost him..." he continued. "Then I got a bit more space and some time to give the legs a bit of air, then in the last 600 metres it was boxing again. I thought to myself ‘are we going to fight to the finish?’ I’m happy I could take it.

"In every participation I take a win, so I can be proud." He said, referring to his 100% win rate in stage races this year.

For the majority of the bunch, stage seven was something of an easy day; well deserved after the first six stages they've endured. On another blisteringly hot day, two riders were given their freedom to form the break, a sure sign that the peloton wasn't interested in forcing a big group clear, and that the sprinter's teams were determined to stay in control on the roads through the Landes and Gironde regions.

Jakob Otruba (Caja Rural) and Baptiste Veistroffer (Intermarché Lotto) were given a maximum lead of one minute 38 seconds as Alpecin-Premier tech and Soudal-Quick Step marshalled the front of the peloton, with occasional help from Decathlon CMA CGM. The French team might be more focused on Paul Seixas's GC ambitions, but following Olav Kooij's win on stage five into Pau, they had to show willing.

Perhaps still reeling from Tadej Pogačar's trouncing of everyone over the Tourmalet the day before, the likes of Visma - Lease a bike and Red Bull - Bora - hansgrohe were well hidden in the bunch while yellow jersey holders UAE Team Emirates had little to do.

The pair worked well together but after one last dig from Veistroffer at 20km to go, sat up and shook hands. They always knew they wouldn't survive to the finish, but acknowledged their hard work.

From there the peloton took a few more kilometres to pick up the speed as things started to get nervy. Coming into Bordeaux the likes of Alpecin, Soudal and Cofidis sent their trains to the front, but it was Netcompany - Ineos that lead into the city as the roads first narrowed and the street furniture became more prevalent.

Everyone in the peloton made it safely to the three kilometres to go point and from there most of the riders could relax and leave the action to unfold in the arrowhead of around 40 riders at the front. With no team able to assert overall control it looked chaotic at times as teammates would squeeze through the gaps to drop their sprinters and leadout men near the front.

It was Alpecin who brought numbers to the front in the final two kilometres, and with the strength of van der Poel looked like they were favourites for the win. But for once the team got their timing wrong and ceded the stage to a rider who, in the midst of the cut and thrust of a bunch sprint, showed just the right amount of patience.

Stage 7, Hagetmau > Bordeaux, 175.1km

1. Tim Merlier (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, in 3:44:20
2. Søren Wærenskjold (Nor) Uno-X Mobility
3. Biniam Girmay (Eri) NSN Cycling
4. Max Kanter (Ger) XDS Astana
5. Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech
6. Phil Bauhaus (Ger) Bahrain Victorious
7. Huub Artz (Ned) Lotto Intermarché
8. Dorian Godon (Fra) Netcompany Ineos
9. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek
10. Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) NSN Cycling, all at same time

Tour de France 2026 general classification after stage six

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 24:56:17
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, +2:42
3. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +3:27
4. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Redu Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +3:30
5. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +3:34
6. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +3:55
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +4:00
8. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +4:21
9. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek,+4:57
10. Mathias Vacek (Cze) Lidl-Trek, +7:10

Is Tadej Pogačar’s closest challenger at the Tour de France his own UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Isaac del Toro?

The 22-year-old Mexican is making his debut in the French Grand Tour, and apart from Pogačar he has arguably been the most impressive rider so far. He’s also currently in the white jersey as the best young rider.

He posted the sixth fastest-time on the first day team time trial; won the second stage on Montjuïc in Barcelona; teed Pogačar up for victory the following day; and then set up his teammate’s attack on the Col du Tourmalet on stage six. Despite putting in a lung-busting effort, Del Toro stuck with the other podium contenders and eventually finished third in Gavarnie-Gèdre.

Ahead of stage seven, he is in third place, 3:27 off Pogačar in yellow, and 45 seconds adrift of Vingegaard. Six riders are within a minute of Del Toro; the battle for the podium looks set to be more intriguing and unpredictable than the race for yellow.

The way Del Toro outsprinted Vingegaard on Montjuïc and then rode him off his wheel on the Tourmalet has indicated that the Pogačar-Vingegaard duopoly of positions one and two at the Tour stretching back to 2021 may be under threat.

“He’s here to work for Tadej,” UAE Team Emirates-XRG manager Mauro Gianette told Cycling Weekly at the end of stage six. “It depends how much he will need to do a job for Tadej [if he can challenge for second place], how necessary that will be.

“But of course he’s in great, great shape, he’s progressing, and he’s an amazing champion. He’s just here to discover the Tour and I hope he can stay at the front everyday because that’s how he’ll best discover the Tour.”

Gianetti refuted the suggestion that Del Toro had the legs to ride with Pogačar over the top of the Tourmalet. “No, no, he could not stay with Tadej,” he said. “He tried for one moment because Tadej asked him to go with him, but he had a very hard five minutes. He had to do the last 200 to 300m full gas before Tadej’s attack and that cost a lot of energy.

“He recovered again and he did very well. Isaac is in very good shape and we’re so happy with him.”

Though there is already talk of the Tour being done and dusted three stages before the first rest day, Gianetti, as would be expected, refused to countenance that idea.

“Of course we’re in a good position, but it’s still long – we’ve only done six stages,” Gianetti said. “We need to take it day by day and stay concentrated. Jonas is Jonas and he’s a very strong rider. He will not give up.”

With deep enough pockets, you could buy nearly every bike being raced at the 2026 Tour de France, but what road bikes do the best cycling teams in the world actually use? In this article, I'll run through some of the best road bikes in the world and nominate five road bikes that deserve to be raced in the Tour de France.

There aren’t many sports where you can purchase exactly the same equipment as your idols, so cycling is different in this respect. Take the Colnago Y1Rs, for example. It’s the bike on which Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has been making history, and for a pretty penny (£11,999) you could ride it too…

Tadej usually races a lightweight, unpainted version of the radical aero bike, complete with Enve SES Pro wheels with silver hubs and spokes.

But would you choose it over Jonas Vingegaard's Cervélo S5?

The Cervélo S5 (Visma-Lease a Bike) is widely regarded as one of the best aero bikes in the world. This latest version, which was released in July last year, is supposed to be much lighter and comfier than its predecessor.

Like the Y1RS, it has a bayonet-style fork which decouples the steerer from the head tube, meaning this can be made effectively deeper and thinner to improve aerodynamics. The S5's V-shaped integrated bar-stem is also similar to the Colnago's while its Reserve wheels are deeper at the rear than front.

The two favourites do use different groupsets. Pogačar's Team UAE Emirates-XRG is sponsored by Shimano, so the defending champion runs a 2x Dura-Ace Di2 setup. Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike is sponsored by SRAM, which supports both double and single chainrings on the road. On certain road stages, he'll go 1x and in the mountains he's likely to pair a 1x SRAM Red Aero chainring with a Red XPLR AXS gravel cassette and derailleur.

As for the most popular bike in the pro peloton, it’s a three-way tie. The Pinarello Dogma F is raced by Q36.5 and Netcompany-Ineos, the Canyon Aeroad CFR is used by Movistar and Alpecin Premier-Tech, and the brand new Specialized Tarmac SL9 is ridden by Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe and Soudal-Quickstep.

The all-round Dogma F is unchanged since 2024 but Canyon gave the Aeroad CFR a new handlebar, the flared and long CP0053, earlier this year. Specialized says the Tarmac SL9 is marginally more aerodynamic than the SL8 thanks to a thinner and better integrated head tube and a slimmer seat tube which curves around the rear wheel.

Of course, Remco Evenepoel once again gets a rather special paintjob to commemorate him being the reigning Olympic Champion.

Remco and Lipowitz aren’t the only ones with new bikes. Team Total Energies has a prototype Litening Aero C:68X from German brand Cube. The key differences to the current model are its more carved out head tube, sawn-off seat cluster and very deep-topped integrated cockpit. The French team may roll out the lighter Litening Air C:68X climbing bike for mountainous days.

Bahrain Victorious lines up with a brand new Bianchi called the Specialissima RC. As has become increasingly common, it’s an all-rounder that combines aero performance with low weight.

The Italian brand claims the frame weighs just 750g and that the bike is 16 watts more aerodynamically efficient than before at 50km/h. It was released a few weeks ago, so we haven’t managed to swing a leg over one yet. But Bianchi promises good compliance from its exclusive use of Countervail carbon fibre. It will be interesting to see whether Bahrain race the Specialissima instead of the Bianchi's Oltre RC aero bike.

Orbea, ridden by Lotto-Intermarché, was another brand to officially launch a bike on the eve of the race: an updated Orca Aero. Among the usual 'stiffer, lighter, faster' marketing material, the Basque brand said a lower bottom bracket confers a big aero advantage over the old bike by lowering the rider's position.

Unsurprisingly, all 23 teams are using carbon fibre bikes. Oliver Naesen was the last Tour de France cyclist to race a metal bike, a steel Eddy Merckx Corsa, on the final stage of the 2019 Tour into Paris. The last Tour de France-winning metal bike was the Pinarello Dogma FP belonging to Oscar Pereiro. The Spaniard was awarded the 2006 title after Floyd Landis' disqualification. Made mainly from magnesium alloy, the Dogma FP had carbon seatstays and a carbon fork. The last steel bike to win the maillot jaune was Miguel Indurain's 1995 Pinarello. Let me know if you prefer that era of bike or the current crop of race machines in the comments below.

One of the best-looking Tour de France bikes is the bright red Wilier Filante SLR ID2 ridden by Groupama-FDJ. The Italian brand says the lightweight aero bike uses a deeper fork, aero bottles and a narrower, flared handlebar to be significantly faster than the model Mark Cavendish rode to set his Tour de France stage-win record. Wilier really seems to be delivering some excellent performing bikes at the moment so this one is well up our list of bikes to review in 2026.

You can't yet buy all the 2026 Tour de France bikes because some are prototypes. These include an unnamed Van Rysel for young French GC hopeful Paul Seixas. The blacked-out bike seems to marry aspects of the French brand's existing road race bikes, the aero RCR-F and the lighter RCR Pro, into an all-rounder platform. Watch our video for more info.

Uno-X Mobility also has an unreleased Ridley climbing bike we spotted at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. We imagine the Norwegian team will choose what could be a new Falcon RS in the Alps and Pyrénées over the heavy Noah Fast 3.0 aero bike.

Have I missed any? Oh, yes quite a few. Cofidis has a new Look Blade 795 RS 3, which is said to come with 350 fit options. EF Education-Easypost will race the more aggressive fifth-generation Cannondale SuperSix Evo, another all-rounder which killed off the American brand's full-fat aero bike, the SystemSix. Team Jayco-AlUla is set to exclusively race the new Giant Propel Advanced SL. Claimed to be 355g lighter and 18.4 watts faster than before, mainly thanks to fancy new Cadex components, the fourth generation Propel is an aero bike that can meet the 6.8kg UCI weight limit, leaving no room for Giant's TCR climbing bike.

Just popping back to that Look bike quickly, Cofidis is the only team at the 2026 Tour de France using a Campagnolo groupset. Everyone else is using either Shimano or SRAM. Ten teams are on SRAM Red and 12 are on Shimano. SRAM is definitely on the rise in pro cycling, having increased from two WorldTour teams five years ago

Mads Pedersen and Jonathan Milan will be looking to add to their haul of Tour de France stage wins for Lidl-Trek on the eighth-generation Trek Madone SLR. Featuring a hole in the seat tube for comfort, the latest Madone SLR amalgamated the Madone aero bike and Émonda climbing bike into one model in 2024.

NSN Cycling Team, Biniam Girmay's outfit, has the oldest bike in the peloton with the Scott Foil RC, an aero bike which hasn't been updated since 2022. Scott's newer road race bike, the Addict RC Ultimate, is too light to be raced in the WorldTour.

Picnic PostNL race the Lapierre Xelius DRS while Tudor Pro Cycling is a Swiss team using Swiss bikes, the BMC Teammachine R.

Caja Rural is a Spanish team with a wildcard entry using bikes from Spanish brand MMR. This is the MMR Aelion all-rounder bike which we really don’t see a lot of in the UK or US.

But a brand that is currently taking the world by storm is X-LAB, having partnered with hundreds of dealers in North America. XDS-Astana race the Chinese brand’s flagship race bike, the AD9.

You might have noticed, maybe only in close-up shots or podium presentations, that some riders at the Tour de France are wearing small strips of tape on the arch of their noses.

Certain names in particular might spring to mind: Lidl-Trek’s Mattias Skjelmose, for example, Netcompany-Ineos’s Kévin Vauquelin, or Visma-Lease a Bike duo Victor Campenaerts and Jonas Vingegaard, whose bright pink bands are among the most visible in the bunch.

But what are those little strips of material? What do they do? And, if riders at the Tour de France are relying on them, do they really give a marginal gain in performance?

Nasal strips are no new phenomenon in cycling. Used previously in the 1990s, they’ve seen a resurgence in recent years, thanks to the commercialisation of a number of brands, selling them at £1 a pop.

The claim behind them is that they facilitate breathing by opening up the airways and increasing oxygen intake to the lungs.

Some brands, like HiStrips, who provides nasal strips to Visma-Lease a Bike, go as far as to say their products allow “up to 40% more airflow” through the nose. But the science is less convinced; a study of literature on nasal dilators published in 2023 found the devices tend to have “no effect” on respiratory function or exercise capacity.

So why do riders wear them? Campenaerts was one of the peloton’s early adopters of nasal strips – he’s even been known to epilate his nostrils. “When you're really suffering, you normally start to hyperventilate through the mouth,” he told Het Nieuwsblad at the Vuelta a España last year. “If, in those moments, you force yourself to breathe through the nose, you give your body a signal to relax.”

Similarly, Pinarello Q36.5’s Fred Wright wore a nasal strip when he won the British National Road Championships at the end of June. “I feel like nose strips were a thing back when I was racing as a youth,” he told Cycling Weekly. “It does feel like it opens your nose up, but I do think if you’re really heavy breathing, your body knows how to take in as much oxygen as it can, [especially] for a trained athlete.”

So is there a significant gain? “I don’t really think so,” Wright said. “To be honest, I guess it’s more of an aesthetic thing… What I’ll say is that, now that I’ve won a race with one, I can’t not have one now, can I?

“If I was giving advice to an amateur or someone that was getting into cycling, I think [nasal strips] would maybe be one of the last things I would tell them to buy. There are lots of things that help you before a nasal strip – it’s definitely one of the lowest items on the list.”

It’s telling that riders who wear nasal strips are a minority at the Tour de France.

Within WorldTour team EF Education-EasyPost, the doctors see such little gain from the products, they don’t ask their riders to wear them in races.

“At high intensity, when you’re mouth breathing, [a nasal strip] is not going to make a difference,” EF head doctor Jon Greenwell told Cycling Weekly. “When you’re riding at high intensity, there’s almost zero airflow going through your nose; more than 90% is going through your mouth, and only 10% is going through your nose.

“Generally, the science says that oxygen transfer from air into your lungs isn’t the limiting factor; it’s actually the oxygen going from your lungs into your bloodstream, and then going around your body. Generally, you never struggle for oxygen because you can’t get enough air into your lungs.”

EF do, however, ask their riders to wear nasal strips when they’re sleeping. “Ideally, at night time, you want to be breathing through your nose. You don’t want to be breathing through your mouth,” says Greenwell.

The reason for this is that nasal breathing increases blood oxygen absorption, and cleans the air of pollen and dust. Meanwhile, mouth breathing can dry out saliva, which is important for protecting against infection.

The only question that remains, then, is: should you, like Campenaerts, Vingegaard or Vauquelin, wear a nasal strip when you ride a bike? Well, probably not, especially if you’re hoping for significant performance gains. It might be a good idea to wear one to bed, though.

Riding the Tour de France is not just the accomplishment of a lifelong goal for a bike rider, but the fulfilment of an entire family's ambition. The 50 debutants in this year's race are chuffed to be here, but so too are their parents and siblings, and everyone else who has been part of their journey.

Take Zac Walker, two years younger than his brother Max, who is riding his maiden Tour at the age of 24 (he will turn 25 on July 12) for EF Education-EasyPost. "This has always been our childhood dream, so I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to watch him," Zac says, placing the emphasis on the collective. "It was always our dream and we're just all so proud of him. He's such a nice guy and it couldn't happen to anyone better."

Zac is supporting his brother throughout the Tour by driving "a hire car that is probably a bit too big for my driving capabilities" but he hasn't got much of a plan beyond the first few days. "If my preparation isn't good enough and the worst comes to the worst, there's always the backseat so I can sleep in the car just fine. And if not, I've got a Decathlon tent."

It's likely Zac will be visible - and audible at the side of the road over the coming weeks. "I don't think it's a problem at the Tour, but at some cycling races there's not enough cheering, so I'll be giving Max a big cheer. I've got my Isle of Man flag in my bag, as well as a cowbell. My voice does wonders as well."

The Walkers' mum, Sally, can't quite believe her oldest son has made it to the Tour when she speaks with CW at the start in Barcelona. "For the family it's massive, huge," she smiles. "He's always watched it, especially with Mark Cavendish and Pete Kennaugh being from the Isle of Man as well. But I never thought in my wildest dreams that he'd make it. He always said he wanted to, and I did believe he could, but I just never thought it would happen. It's not until I've got here that I see that, yeah, it is happening."

She turns her thoughts to Dot Tilbury, the Isle of Man coach who has been credited with launching the careers of all of the small island's pro riders. "Dot will be so proud. She's massive to anyone from the Isle of Man," Sally says. "Everyone's talking about it and knows what Max is doing - they call it the Isle of Man posse, and they're all rooting for him."

Max, who is in the second year of his first professional contract with EF, was told nine days before the race started that he had been selected. "But I missed the original phone call as I had my phone on silent!" he laughs. "I didn't know what to expect when I called Charly [Wegelius, the team's sports director] back as I knew I was one of the last two picks and that it was 50-50. I was half-excited but half-nervous that he might say no, so when he said I was going I was really happy."

But just like most 20-somethings who delay informing their parents of any news - no matter how small or big - Max didn't tell his family of his selection until three days later. "He didn't tell us for ages!" Sally chuckles. "And when he did, he just dropped it in, five minutes into another chat we were having!"

The Walkers have twice seen the Tour: in Harrogate on day one of the 2014 race, when their fellow Manxman and idol Mark Cavendish crashed out, and in Morzine in the Alps when they hiked for hours up a mountain to watch a mountain stage - only for incessant rain to leave them sodden. What they've learned from their previous trips is to maximise the caravan freebies.

"Seeing the riders was cool, but the caravan was even cooler," Max says of that day in Morzine. "I was dancing on the side of the road, getting all the Haribos and caps. I think half of my suitcase was filled with caravan stuff. I've been telling my family to make sure they get out early to see the caravan."

Zac has listened and is obliging. "My aim is to have to buy another suitcase to put on my flight on the way home. Not that that's booked, by the way. I haven't got much of a plan for anything."

One family who did have a plan at the start of the race was the Molenaars. Alex, 26, was riding his first Tour for race debutants Caja Rural-Seguros RGA. Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands to his Dutch father Gerrit, Molenaar lived in Olot, Catalonia from the ages of 10 to 16. His Spanish mother, Dolors, is from Barcelona, and her childhood home was at the foot of Montjuïc where stages one and two finished. Molenaar essentially had a home Grand Départ.

"Buah, it's everything!" Molenaar tells CW before stage one. "From the first day I started riding a bike until now, I've been dreaming of this. When I was young, when I started my first training sessions and races, through all the suffering, it's all been for this moment. And it's all worth it."

Up until this spring, when ASO, the Tour organisers, announced that Caja would receive a wildcard to ride the race, Molenaar had never seriously thought he would appear at the Tour. He's spent his entire career so far riding for third-division Continental teams and second-tier ProTeams. "You dream, but at this level it's difficult to believe it's possible," he says. "For riders who are at this level, it's an opportunity that presents itself very few times. To ride the Tour is something really fuera de normal - extraordinary. It's a huge prize for all of us and the team as a whole."

Caja were the first team down the team time trial start ramp in Barcelona, and Molenaar was the first rider across the finish line. For a few minutes, he was in virtual yellow - the de facto leader of the race sat in the hot seat. His mum, watching on with Gerrit and their extended family, could barely believe what she was witnessing.

"You couldn't imagine that so many years later your son would be riding the Tour de France on the same streets that you played on as a child," she says, just hours after Molenaar passed them. A day later, Molenaar was one of three escapees, and ended the day in the King of the Mountains jersey. "It's just a beautiful experience, truly unforgettable," Dolors says.

The Molenaars picked up their family campervan on stage three to follow the rest of the Tour, but two days later were dealt a blow when their son crashed on stage five, sustaining injuries that would see him pull out before the next day. But that wasn't their summer over. In August they go to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift where their daughter, Laura, will make her second successive appearance for VolkerWessels. "It's incredible that our two children are competing in the Tour de France," Dolors beams.

While Walker, Molenaar and other debutants, including Netcompany-Ineos's Josh Tarling, are being supported at the roadside by their partners and family, New Zealander Aaron Gate has his two young sons cheering him on. "It was quite surreal that all four of us just jumped in our car and drove two-and-a-half hours from our home in Andorra down to Barcelona to start the Tour de France," he says.

"To have my wife and kids with me is pretty cool." Aged 35 and seven months, Gate is the oldest debutant since Mathew Hayman in 2014 and one of only nine riders this century over the age of 35 to make their Tour bows.

The Kiwi has spent most of his career focusing on the track, winning four Commonwealth Games medals for his home nation and a bronze medal in the team pursuit at the 2012 London Olympics. It was only in 2017 that he started to properly commit to the road, but he didn't reach the World Tour until the 2025 season, signing for XDS-Astana, who he's riding for at the Tour.

There was a certain symmetry that the Tour began with a team time trial, for Gate's first taste of competitive action when he was a teenager was racing 10-mile team time trials in inter-school national competitions.

"The guys who I used to race those TTTs with rekindled an old chat last week and they were joking that one of us has finally made it to the Tour de France," Gate says. "It was through those guys that I got interested in following cycling so this is for them as much as it is for me."

The super-slick time trial set-up that Gate was on in Barcelona was quite the contrast to the races of old. "We had restricted gearing set at 53-17," he says. "Our best time on a flat course was 20 minutes, 6 seconds. We were gutted we didn't quite break the 20-minute barrier for 10 miles." That definitely doesn't matter now he's riding the Tour.

"Everyone has dreams, but I've never been someone to set really long-reaching goals. I just go with the flow and when opportunities present themselves, I take them with both hands," he says. But, he confesses, there were fears in the past month that injury or illness might scupper his chances.

"I will admit that it was nerve-wracking from a crash point of view at the Tour of Belgium and Copenhagen Sprint," he says. "I was just making sure that I got through them both with my body intact. When I crossed the line in Belgium, I did so with a big sigh of relief. 'I've done it! I've survived without falling off!' I was telling others."

Gate had done everything he needed to do to make the Tour squad, just like Walker, Molenaar and the other few dozen debutants. While they will be the ones who are spoken about on TV and featured in the press, their achievements will belong as much to their families as to them.

"Watching your son at the Tour de France is such a privilege," says Molenaar's mum, Dolors, "We're really, really proud. Our son is a good rider but he's not a superstar. We're so grateful that our son gets some attention in these few weeks - as all other parents will be."

The Tour de France is accustomed to Tadej Pogačar masterclasses. He’s been coming here for seven years now, and each and every year – even in 2022 and 2023 when he was beaten to the yellow jersey – he delivers an exhibition or six (as in 2024).

Almost all of his 23 stage wins have been greeted with a sense of inevitability – the best bike rider of all time just doing best bike rider of all time things – but his stage six win in the Pyrenees produced a different reaction to what has come before.

Just beyond the finish line stood soigneurs, managers and communications staff from all 23 competing teams, as well as a few dozen journalists and camera operators. Except for the winning team’s personnel, only in exceptional circumstances do those present audibly react to a race result. Still, there’s always chatter, always noise.

This time there was nothing. Silence. And a deafening one at that.

It’s only day six of a race that is meant to be backloaded to prevent Pogačar from running away with the yellow jersey, but on the first real mountain day that didn’t even finish up a steep climb he’s practically, avoiding any unforeseen circumstances, wrapped the race up, possessing a lead of 2:42 to Vingegaard. How on earth is the Dane, or anyone else, meant to reduce such a big deficit, let alone overturn it?

“Boring,” mouthed one soigneur from a team in the fight for the podium spots. Their colleague laughed, and nodded along.

Professional road cycling is living through an era that will be mythicised for decades to come, in the same way the Eddy Merckx epoch is now. Everyone tuning into the Tour de France is witnessing history in action. Roadside fans are watching the greatest of all time, riders are racing with the greatest of all time, and staff and media are in the vicinity of the greatest of all time. There is a great deal of privilege in all of that.

But in Gavarnie-Gèdre there was a collective sigh at Pogačar’s latest victory. Everyone had resigned themselves to the fact that he will almost certainly be the champion for a record-equalling fifth time come the end of the race. That is not the reason for the widespread disgruntlement – it’s the knowing that there's likely to be no competition for the maillot jaune in this year’s Tour de France that has left everyone, save for the UAE cohort, exasperated and defeated.

All enthusiasm for the race – buoyed considerably by Paul Seixas’s much-anticipated debut – has dissipated in one afternoon. More accurately, in one attack, 5.5km from the top of the Col du Tourmalet.

Remco Evenepoel, part of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe’s one-two approach with Florian Lipowitz, fumed when he crossed the line along with the rest of the podium hopefuls. He would have expected to be inferior to Pogačar on a day that counted 4,200m of elevation, but it was the enormity and manner of Pogačar’s dominance that seemingly enraged Evenepoel, along with his dissatisfaction with Lipowitz’s apparent lack of cooperation.

The Belgian collected his safety bib and whistle that he required to descend the mountain 22km back to his team bus, but not before expressing his irritation. He wasn't alone in his frustration.

There are 15 more stages to win, classifications to top and a podium to fight over, but the feeling on the ground and within the peloton as the race heads away from the Pyrenees is one of resigned finality.

“Should we all go home?” one team communications officer said. They weren’t joking, either.

Remco Evenepoel said he felt he was “justifiably angry” at his Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team-mate Florian Lipowitz after cooperation between the pair appeared to collapse on stage six of the Tour de France.

According to Evenepoel, speaking to the Belgian press after Tadej Pogačar's win in Gavarnie, Lipowitz refused to give him a lead-out to the line from the chase group. If Evenepoel had won the sprint for third, he would have gained four bonus seconds in the general classification. Instead, Pogačar's team-mate Isaac del Toro dashed ahead to take more time behind second-placed Jonas Vingegaard.

"I had asked for a lead-out, and I didn't get one," Evenepoel told Sporza. "I think I was justifiably angry. At the Volta a Catalunya, I rode at the front for him for 30km. I asked him to ride at the front for one kilometre, and that wasn't possible. That made me angry, and that will need to be discussed thoroughly tonight."

Evenepoel placed fourth on stage six, 2:57 behind the stage winner, Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). Lipowitz, who finished third overall at the race last year, crossed the line sixth, at the same time difference.

Lipowitz shared a different view of how the stage unfolded. He told German publication ARD: "We didn't manage to bring Jonas back, but the team performance was top-notch today. Now we have to fight for third place, the battle will be incredibly tough.

"I can be very happy, my legs just weren't quite up to par on the Tourmalet," he continued.

After his 43km solo attack, Pogačar now leads the general classification at the Tour by 2:42 ahead of Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), while Evenepoel is fourth overall, 3:30 behind. Lipowitz is a further 30 seconds in arrears.

After taking yellow just two days ago, Torstein Træen lost the lead and then was forced to retire from the Tour de France due to injuries he suffered on a crash on stage six.

According to a team statement, Træen suffered multiple fractured ribs and concussion after a crashing on the descent of the Col du Tourmalet.

"This is really not the ending we wanted for the yellow adventure," said the team's general manager Thor Hushovd.

The crash took place with around 30km to go, after a rampaging attack by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) had already put Træen well in arrears. He managed to finish the stage, albeit 29:55 down on the Slovenian stage winner, his yellow jersey stint well and truly put to bed.

In fact, he crossed the line with a smile on his face, perhaps because of the rousing welcome he was given by the still-waiting fans.

Speaking briefly to reporters afterwards, Træen said at the time he wasn't sure whether he would continue the Tour de France.

"We have to see what the x-ray shows for now," he said, before the medical report was relased. "My head is hurting a bit, and then obviously my ribs are not super fine, so we just have to see,"

Asked about how he managed to survive the rest of the stage, which comprised the rest of the descent and the cat-two climb up to Gavarnie-Gèdre, he revealed that he and Anders Halland Andersen had joked about sprinting for the line.

"I was joking with Anders that we will sprint for it," he said. "I don't know if he would let me win or not, but at least we can still enjoy it, even though it was not the best day."

The big mountains of stage six from Pau to Gavarnie-Gèdre were always going to prove a hurdle, but Træen probably hadn't reckoned on crashing hard on the descent of the Tourmalet.

It was some time before the Uno-X Mobility rider eased himself gingerly back into the saddle, after clipping wheels with Halland Johannessen in a hairpin, the bike flipping over and dumping him hard on the tarmac.

But he had already lost a lot of time and, crash or no crash, his tenure in yellow would have come to an end at Gavarnie-Gèdre.

Træen, who also wore the leader's jersey in last year's Vuelta a España, had taken the jersey on stage four in Foix after being part of a major breakaway that finished almost 13 minutes ahead of the peloton.

After that stage Pogačar said he could end up holding the lead for a long time. Perhaps the Slovenian decided he was missing it, or maybe he didn't expect to beat Træen by so much. Either way, the jersey is back with a more familiar caretaker this evening.

They will say that Tadej Pogačar dealt a blow on stage six of the Tour de France. But really it was a pummelling – a beatdown so strong that, even by Pogačar’s standards, it took people by surprise.

Never in the world champion’s 22 previous stage victories at the race had he won so resoundingly, both in terms of distance and time. His 43km solo, over the Col du Tourmalet and on to Gavarnie, was his furthest ever at the Tour. The two minutes and 38 seconds he won by was his biggest single-day margin. Entire Tours have been decided by less.

And yet, as he sat in his press conference after the stage, dressed again in the yellow jersey he has already won four times, he barely seemed tired. Especially not for a man who had gotten up at 7am because he was, in his words, “so excited for today”.

Pogačar had always planned to win on the race's first mountain test. But even he couldn't have expected to run away with the race.

“The energy yesterday on the bus after the finish was already a big hype for today,” he said. “We were like, ‘Let’s go all-in. What’s the worst that can happen?’ You can blow out a little bit, but we know that we are the stronger team, so we said we’d commit to one plan, and whatever happens, happens.”

What happened was a total demolition. Around 5km from the top of the Tourmalet, Pogačar sprung off the wheel of his UAE Team Emirates-XRG lieutenant Isaac del Toro, and charged away from his GC rivals. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) did his best to follow, but could only do so momentarily. By the time Pogačar passed the restaurant at the climb’s summit, his advantage was 31 seconds, which ballooned on the descent, and then swelled further on the near-19km drag up to the finish line in Gavarnie.

“The race went perfect for us, actually,” he said afterwards. “The breakaway couldn’t go for almost two hours, so that meant the bunch brought us closer to the climbs, and then we really did what we said.”

The day reminded the world champion of a similar one in 2023. That year, on stage six to Cauterets-Cambasque, Vingegaard attacked with Wout van Aert on the descent of the Tourmalet, and distanced Pogačar. “I had these flashbacks in my mind,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘If Jonas comes fresh to the top, and maybe he’s only 20 seconds [behind], he’s for sure catching me on the downhill.’”

In reality, it shouldn’t have worried him. Pogačar went on to win that stage three years ago, as he did on Thursday, in control once again in his playground of the Pyrenees.

Was there a moment, at all, when he felt on the limit? “I think, for me, if the climb [of the Tourmalet] was one kilometre longer, I would also have exploded,” he said.

“But I think for Jonas it was also a little bit too long for his pace. He did his best, he did really good, but there was a little bit of a difference, that you go too much into the red.”

Some watching on may have groaned at Pogačar’s dominance. But the fans at the roadside stood in awe of what they were seeing. One lady joyously waved her Slovenian flag in the wind. The staff at La Ruade bar, 300m from the finish line, came out onto the terrace and swung pumpkin-sized cowbells between their legs.

The crowd’s cheers then faded to silence. Where was Vingegaard? The gap on the big screen said almost two minutes, but the pictures were delayed; it felt like much longer. “I'm a Pogi guy,” one fan turned and said to his friend, “but I wanted there to be a contest.”

It was only when they heard the growl of a camera motorbike that the fans slipped out of their chit-chat, and turned to face the road, where a labouring Vingegaard chased in desperation.

For the Dane, what awaited at the summit was a huddle of reporters, impatient to capture his disappointment. Pogačar, on the other hand, was greeted by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, in a pair of blue aviator sunglasses. “We had an immense stage,” Macron, who had followed in a race car, told France Télévisions. “It was incredible.”

The president watched the podium ceremony from the wings and applauded Pogačar on his victory. When he eventually congratulated the Slovenian, he gripped his hand and held it for more than 15 seconds, hoping perhaps to extract some of his powers.

This was, Macron realised, one of the sport’s most dominant riders ever, on one of his most dominant days. The supremacy was clear. This Tour may be a victory lap from here on.

Fresh across the line in the saturating heat at Gavarnie-Gèdre after stage six of the Tour de France, Adam Yates helped dissect the mindset and ability of teammate, stage winner and new yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar.

"Good," Yates said, after journalists broke the news that Pogačar had reclaimed the race lead, before explaining that life as a classification leader is all the Slovenian knows in the Tour.

"For him, I think he said on the bus the other day, he doesn't know any different – he's always in white or yellow or polka-dot or something, so he doesn't know the other side of the Tour de France, where you get to go in the bus and have a shower and all this, so I think it also shows his mental resilience," he said.

Asked whether he continued to be amazed by his Slovenian teammate, who had turned in his longest ever winning solo break in the Tour at 43km, Yates said: "When he does stuff like this… I mean, it's pretty normal for him," he joked.

Yates had been a key part of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad that bossed the stage on both the Col d'Aspin and the hors-category Col du Tourmalet, setting the stage for Pogačar to take flight, five kilometres from the summit of the latter.

He had passed through the finishing paddock a little over eight minutes before Yates arrived, his head bowed, face swarming in beads of sweat and looking pale from a combination of heat and effort – but ready to pull on the yellow jersey once again.

Yates described Pogačar's 2:42 lead on chief rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) as "a good advantage".

"The climb here today, the last climb after the Tourmalet is more like a valley climb," Yates went on. "It's not like a real climb so, you know, Tadej when he's on these kinds of rolling roads, he's one of the best in the world. It was always the plan to for him to launch on Tourmalet, and to try and have a gap… seems like it paid off."

Yates even confessed to being surprised at exactly how big the gap to Vingegaard was, but like any good pro cyclist addressing the media, he made sure to remind reporters that "it's never over till it's over".

"You can have bad days…" he added. "I think we just need to try not to make any mistakes and be calm. Hopefully we can recover the next two days and then we'll see."

Meanwhile Vingegaard and his team have been left licking their wounds and trying to square Pogačar's performance on stage six with the Dane's desire to win the Tour.

Yates was right, the Tour isn't over till it's over, but the rampaging Pogačar we saw today looks ever so familiar. He will take a lot to overcome.

Jonas Vingegaard can only be disappointed. Visma-Lease a Bike had a plan for stage six of the Tour de France that would, if successful, have given Vingegaard the advantage over Tadej Pogačar after the first proper mountain day.

The Dutch team’s strategy centred on getting a team-mate(s) – in particular Victor Campenaerts – in the breakaway to act as a satellite rider for later on in the day once Vingegaard was still climbing or had crested the Col du Tourmalet.

No such thing materialised. UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with the help of other teams, shut everything down. This was to be their day. It was to be another exhibition by Pogačar.

Vingegaard put up a respectable fight on the Tourmalet, reaching the summit 31 seconds adrift of the defending champion, but on the descent he lost 41 seconds to Pogačar.

Then, on the long, shallow 18.7km climb to Gavarnie-Gèdre, he shipped a further 80 seconds, to eventually cross the line in second a whopping 2:38 adrift of Pogačar. It was his biggest single day loss to his rival since stage 8 of the 2021 Tour. This year’s race, in all probability, is already lost.

“I'm disappointed, I have to be, but sometimes that's life and I cannot change it,” Vingegaard said at the finish, just moments after being consoled by Pogačar’s team manager, Mauro Gianetti.

There dejection and frustration was felt throughout Visma-Lease a Bike. “The game plan was to put one or two guys in the break,” said Vingegaard's team-mate Matteo Jorgenson. “I was surprised to see sprinter teams chasing Victor for the intermediate sprint.

"That changed a lot of the stage because then the first 50km they did the work for UAE. From there we entered the hilly zone and it was much easier to control. I think that’s where our plan went a little bit wrong in that we just didn’t get a guy in the break.”

Plan B had to be enacted: stick with Pogačar’s inevitable attack on the Tourmalet. But teed up by Isaac del Toro, once Pogačar went, Vingegaard was distanced. He kept the gap at around 10 seconds for a few kilometres but then the Slovenian powered away and Vingegaard laboured.

“They put a big attack in on the Tourmalet and I couldn’t follow,” the Dane said. “I had to settle into my own pace. Over the top I was not that far away, but on a downhill like this, it’s not suited to me.”

Visma’s head of racing, Marc Reef, was similarly downbeat. “On the Tourmalet, when Pogačar attacked, Jonas rode at his own pace and managed to keep the gap within around 10 seconds for quite some time.

“However, with about 2km to the summit, he had to ease his pace slightly. From there, he fought all the way to the finish line, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to keep the gap any smaller.

“Today's result is indeed disappointing, but we saw a Jonas who fought all the way to the finish line and did everything he could to limit the gap to Pogačar while also holding off the group chasing behind him, which he managed to do well.”

That is the one consolation for Vingegaard, though it is a minor one: he was the best of the rest. The other podium candidates all finished between 20 and 30 seconds in arrears of him.

The reigning Giro d’Italia champion, however, was determined he is still here to win, not come second. “It was a very tough day, not the day I wanted but that’s how it is sometimes,” he said, and added: “I still believe in myself, I still believe my legs will get better throughout the race, so the fight is not over,”

Tadej Pogačar stormed to victory on stage six of the 2026 Tour de France, ripping up the general classification in the process, and taking back the yellow jersey on Thursday.

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider flew away on the Col du Tourmalet, 43km from the finish, and put over two minutes into his closest rival, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), by the finish. It is his 23rd stage win at the race, and second of this Tour already.

Pogačar won the Souvenir Jacques Goddet over the top of the Tourmalet, with just 30 seconds on Vingegaard, but pushed on down the descent and on the final climb to Gavarnie-Gèdre. Meanwhile, previous yellow jersey Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) crashed after losing time, ending his time in the race lead. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) finished third.

Del Toro was part of a chase group including the other main favourites, like Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), which finished 2:57 behind the winner.

Pogačar now leads the race by 2:42 over Vingegaard, just six days into this Tour.

"I think top five, I would say," the world champion said when asked where he would rank this win. "I got flashbacks to the stage with the Tourmalet in 2023 when I broke my hand. I got a lot of flashbacks, it was a similar finish. It was a really incredible victory, one of the sweetest for sure.

"Yesterday on the bus when we were coming from the stage with the guys, there was a lot of hype already talking about today’s stage," he continued. "Today I woke up at 7 and my mind was going crazy already, I was really excited for today. All the guys were really hyped, so I knew it was going to be a good day. We just committed, we were going like nothing to lose, if we explode we explode. In the end, we succeeded and I’m super proud of everyone today, it was crazy teamwork."

As for whether he planned to decimate the race, he said: "In my mind I left everything to coincidence. Whatever happens happens, I was not calculating minutes or seconds, I just wanted to go all the way to the finish full gas.

"I think I would not take the yellow jersey today, because Torstein crashed on the Tourmalet. It’s a shit downhill, really dangerous if you miss a corner. I hope he’s ok. I would still prefer if he would keep the jersey today, so I hope he recovers fast and can continue racing."

The day's early break began with Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) surging up the road in search of points, follows Huub Artz (Lotto Intermarché) and Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike).

The only notable thing to happen early on was Artz being pulled up by the race jury over his position on his handlebars, which ended up with the Belgian dropping out of the break.

With 135km to go, the bunch split up on the Côte de Loucrup, the first classified climb of the day. Visma-Lease a Bike applied a lot of pressure to the front of the peloton, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) briefly looking isolated.

Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was briefly distanced after he stopped for a nature break, and the peloton pressed on.

Once Pedersen won the intermediate sprint, he sat up and was caught with 123km to go. Immediately, the action to try and get into the day’s next break began, especially at the race headed onto the Côte de Mauvezin. However, with a lot of action at the front of the peloton, it proved difficult to establish anything significant. Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla) and Xabier Mikel Azparren (Pinarello Q36.5) headed up the road, before O’Connor forged on alone.

The Australian built up a lead of over a minute approaching the Col d’Aspin, the opening first-category climb of the race. On the Aspin, UAE Team Emirates-XRG took to the front of the peloton, and O’Connor was caught with 73km to go.

Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) won the KOM sprint at the top of the Aspin, ahead of Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step). On the next climb, the hors categorie Col du Tourmalet, the front of the race got dramatically smaller. Among those dropped under pressure from UAE was Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility), the yellow jersey, who was dropped. Next to go was Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5).

Just 14 riders remained in the front group with 5.5km to go on the Tourmalet, three UAE riders including Isaac del Toro and Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelsmose (Lidl-Trek), Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), Martinez, Egan Bernal (Netcompany-Ineos) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility).

Yates dropped back, then Del Toro took over. The UAE pair moved clear, shadowed by Vingegaard, Lipowitz and Seixas, with Evenepoel further back. Pogačar pressed on alone 4.1km from the top, as Vingegaard, followed by Lipowitz and then Del Toro, sought to fight back.

Over the top of the Tourmalet, Pogačar had half a minute on Vingegaard, a gap which only extended on the descent. Meanwhile, Træen was over seven minutes back, looking like he was heading out of the yellow jersey. A crash on the descent then fully ended his yellow dream.

The chase group including Seixas, Lipowtiz, Evenepoel and others swelled with just over 27km to go. On the final climb of the day, Pogačar’s lead to Vingegaard ballooned to over 90 seconds, with the group of other chasers another 40 seconds behind.

Results

Tour de France 2026 stage six: Pau > Gavarnie-Gèdre (186.2km)

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 4:32:07
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, +2:38
3. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +2:57
4. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Redu Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
5. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM
6. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
7. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek
8. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, all at same time
9. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +3:02
10. Sepp Kuss (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +3:06

General classification after stage six

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 21:11:57
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, +2:42
3. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +3:27
4. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Redu Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +3:30
5. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +3:34
6. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +3:55
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +4:00
8. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +4:21
9. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek,+4:57
10. Mathias Vacek (Cze) Lidl-Trek, +7:10

Yellow jersey Torstein Træen crashed on the descent of the Col du Tourmalet on stage six of the 2026 Tour de France.

The Uno-X Mobility rider was already losing time on stage six leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) when the incident happened, but the crash saw him fully out of contention.

Træeen clipped wheels with his Uno-X teammate Anders Halland Johannessen on a corner and hit the ground. However, after being checked on by his team, the Norwegian was back on his bike and looked to be OK to continue, laughing with Halland Johannessen.

After the crash, Træen was almost 13 minutes behind Pogačar, wiping out his 7:53 advantage which existed pre-stage.

Træen gained yellow on stage four of the Tour in Foix after he was part of a giant breakaway which finished almost 13 minutes ahead of the peloton. However, his stay in the leader's jersey was short-lived, in the baking hot Pyrenees on Thursday afternoon; a shorter time than his four days in red at the Vuelta a España last year.

On Wednesday, he said: "We have to see how fast they're going. And of course, Tadej is Tadej, and I think if he goes full gas on the Tourmalet, maybe I will be behind. You don't know how much you will be losing. We've just got to see tomorrow."

"We haven't had a lot of real mountain climbing yet," he added. "So we don't know what will happen, and then with this heat everything can happen, so you just have to hope and do your best."

More to follow...

Tadej Pogačar crossed the Col du Tourmalet first on stage six of the 2026 Tour de France to win the Souvenir Jacques Goddet.

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider pushed on alone 4.1km from the top of the hors categorie climb on Thursday, after initially attacking with his teammate Isaac del Toro.

Pogačar was chased by his rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) over the top of the Pyrenean climb, but he had an advantage of around 30 seconds by the time the Tourmalet was summited. He also had almost a minute and a half on a group containing Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

The award is given yearly for the rider to reach the top of the Tourmalet first, along with a €5,000 cash prize, and 20 points in the mountains competition. It's the first time Pogačar has won the prize, although the Slovenian has won three stages which have included the climb.

Interestingly, the prize has never been won by a rider who has gone on to win the race, showing how remarkable Pogačar's attack on the climb was.

On Thursday, with the Tourmalet 38.5km from the finish, Pogačar looked in an excellent position to win stage six, which would be his second of the race. With yellow jersey Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) over seven minutes behind the leader on the road, it also looked like the Slovenian was heading into yellow.

This early in the race, it looked like he was putting his stamp on proceedings, with 15 stages still to come. The second-category climb to Gavarnie-Gèdre (18.7km at 3.7%) was still to come after the Tourmalet.

More to follow...

Wearing the yellow jersey after riding into the lead of the Tour de France is a career highlight for any cyclist. In addition to donning the iconic maillot jaune, they usually get to ride a specially painted bike equipped with as many matching components as their mechanics can find.

We saw a similar exercise carried out last year, when Cannondale worked around the clock to paint a Lab71 SuperSix for Ben Healy before escorting it in a Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet to ensure it arrived in time for him to defend the jersey in Toulouse.

The current race leader, Torstein Træen, has this honour and his Uno-X Mobility team has pulled out all the stops to commemorate his remarkable route to yellow. From its factory in Belgium, Uno-X's bike sponsor Ridley delivered a yellow Noah Fast 3.0 to southern France within 30 hours of Træen pulling on the leader's jersey.

In May 2022, Træen discovered he had returned an abnormal doping test result. His team doctor interpreted this as a sign he could be ill, and urged his rider to see his GP. As pain in his testicles increased, an ultrasound scan revealed he had testicular cancer. When his left testicle was removed just 41 days on from his doping alert, a 15mm cancerous tumour was found inside. But it hadn't spread, enabling him to make a full recovery and restart racing in August 2022.

At last year's Vuelta a España, Træen, now 30, wore the red leader's jersey for four stages on the way to finishing ninth on GC. On stage four of the 2026 Tour de France, he joined a strong breakaway powered by Mads Pedersen's Lidl-Trek teammates, who succeeded in setting up Træen's fellow Norwegian for stage victory in Foix.

Træen now leads EF Education-EasyPost's Sean Quinn by 28 seconds in the general classification, and more importantly, he is ahead of race favourite Tadej Pogačar by nearly eight minutes. Being a good climber, this buffer could help him retain yellow through the mountainous second week.

Now let's take a close look at his custom Ridley Noah Fast 3.0, which was sprayed by the brand's CEO, Jochim Aerts, in a return to his frame-spraying roots. The third-generation bike is considered one of the peloton's best aero bikes, thanks to a combination of minimal frontal area and deep tubes designed to take advantage of the 'sailing effect'.

The byproduct of this chunky tubing is weight. At the Opening Weekend, we weighed one of Træen's teammates' bikes at 8kg, which is on the heavy side for a WorldTour bike. In light of that, Ridley hasn't gone all out on the yellow paint – just spraying parts of the head tube and top half of the fork saves 100g over a full coat.

His Noah Fast will be built with a full SRAM Red AXS groupset, including a power meter – the complete bike is estimated to weigh 7.9-8kg, according to Ridley. As for the yellow details, expect to see yellow handlebar tape, wheel decals, and SRAM stickers on the levers and cranks.

Whether the Norwegian uses his custom Ridley Noah Fast for the first mountain stage of this year's Tour de France between Pau and Gavarnie-Gèdre, we'll have to wait and see – we suspect he'll be on the unreleased Falcon RS lightweight bike to ensure he stays in yellow for the coming stages.

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA rider Alex Molenaar has abandoned the Tour de France after breaking his hand in a crash he said he didn't remember.

The Dutchman came down in a small pile-up just outside 5km to go on Wednesday's fifth stage to Pau. He finished the race, second from last and seven minutes behind the winner Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), and was tested for a concussion.

According to Spanish outlet AS, he was heard beyond the finish line saying: "I don't remember the crash."

Molenaar was taken to a nearby hospital after the stage. Caja Rural-Seguros RGA later confirmed that he had suffered a fracture in his hand.

"Alex Molenaar will not be taking the start this Thursday following his heavy crash in Pau," the team wrote on social media.

"The tests carried out have revealed that he is suffering from a fracture of the metacarpal in his right hand."

Riding on his Tour debut, Molenaar wore the polka dot jersey on stage three as leader of the King of the Mountains classification. He is the fourth rider to abandon this year's edition.

Molenaar posted on Instagram on Wednesday evening, writing that he felt “great sadness” not to be able to continue the Tour.

“Unfortunately, my Tour de France has come to an end,” he wrote. “After a hard crash, I hit my head and hand hard. Luckily all is well from the head, but I have fractured my first metacarpal and will have to go through surgery.

“I feel great sadness that I can't continue this wonderful race and fulfil my dream of coming to Paris, but that's how this sport is: sometimes it's the most beautiful in the world and sometimes the hardest.

“Now I just have to wish my colleagues the best of luck for the rest of the race.”

A firewoman, perched on the back of a slow-moving float, hoses a cloud of mist over the fans at the roadside. “Merci!” they call back. Most return a grin and a thumbs-up, too. Under the baking sun in Carcassonne, as the riders arrive to sign on for stage four of the Tour de France, even a second of coolness feels like bliss.

The float then trundles on, and the heat feels inescapable again. It blazes from above, rises up from the tarmac, and sears with each gust of wind, like a blast from a hairdryer. Visma-Lease a Bike’s bus is nowhere to be seen – its air conditioning unit has broken, and the driver has had to make an emergency trip to the garage. Their riders turn up to the start on their bikes, some in ice vests, in a hopeful bid to fend off one of the harshest heatwaves France has ever felt.

According to ProCyclingStats, Tuesday’s stage was the hottest at the race since the website’s records began in 2007: an average of 36.5°C for more than four hours. At its worst, the temperature soared to 45°C, so read the data on EF Education-EasyPost rider Alex Baudin’s GPS computer. Of course, hot weather on the Tour is expected – riders prepare for it all year round – but these numbers are extraordinary. And they’re set to continue.

“It’s hot. It’s definitely hot,” Ineos Grenadiers’ Josh Tarling tells Cycling Weekly. The 22-year-old finished fourth from last on stage four, riding with a cracked rib suffered in a crash at last month’s Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. “It hurts when I breathe anyway,” he says. “With the heat as well, obviously you’re breathing harder and the pain’s catching up. It just feels airless.”

France has been suffering from the heat for around three weeks now. Public health officials announced there were more than 2,000 additional deaths in the country in June due to the soaring temperatures – and even that, they added, was an underestimate.

It’s against this backdrop that, on the eve of the Grand Départ in Barcelona, Spain, France’s interior minister gave local authorities the power to modify and even cancel stages in the event of extreme heat. If such a scenario were to happen, it would be a first in the race’s 112-year history. But with record temperatures, come serious measures. The effects of climate change have become an undeniable reality.

Beyond stage three’s finish line in Les Angles – where fans were refused entry due to wildfires nearby – Tom Pidcock gasped to regain his breath. “I don’t think I’ve done such a hard race in such heat before; it was ridiculous,” he told the TV cameras. “It was like a war zone. I think we went through about 10,000 bidons today as a peloton.”

Drinking fluids is one of few ways riders can ward off heatstroke while exposed on the road. They also wear ice vests before the stages, rely on stockings stuffed with ice cubes during them, and drink slush to try and lower their core temperatures from within. Outside his team bus at stage four's finish in Foix, Soudal Quick-Step’s Jasper Stuyven bit into a fruit pastille lolly as if it were a chicken drumstick and he hadn't eaten in three days.

Other cooling strategies are more sophisticated; Alpecin-Premier Tech’s riders took it in turns to visit ice baths inside a blacked out van behind their team bus after stage five in Pau.

Similarly, UAE Team Emirates-XRG have been sleeping each night in ‘smart mattress cover systems’, which measure the riders’ body temperatures and cool the bed accordingly. And yet, Tadej Pogačar still complained of a “full headache” from the heat at the start of stage four.

Lewis Askey, one of NSN Pro Cycling’s key leadout men for Biniam Girmay, is one of those that tends to struggle in high temperatures. “I’m a lot better now than when I was younger, but I’ve had really, really bad days in the heat in the past. It’s like my body switches off a little bit,” he tells Cycling Weekly.

To help riders mitigate the heat, the UCI has allowed extra bottle hand-outs at the race. How many is Askey taking on during the stages? “It depends if you’re counting actually drank or chucked over my head,” he says. “I’d probably say two or three an hour, and then a couple [over my head] every hour or so, and ice socks.”

Other riders, like Decathlon CMA CGM’s Matthew Riccitello, are more used to the conditions. Standing unsheltered in 36°C heat at the start of stage five in Lannemezan, he waves off his team press officer when offered an ice vest. “It’s not fun for anybody to ride in this heat,” he says, but the American's from Tucson, Arizona, where it’s not abnormal to see temperatures tick into the forties.

“So far, I’ve coped with it quite well,” Riccitello says. “I think just being from somewhere that is quite hot, I maybe adapt better. I don’t know. There’s only so much you can do.”

And there, in that last sentence, lies the crux of the issue: the Tour de France is powerless to Mother Nature.

If temperatures continue to rise, as climate experts forecast they will, the race could become less a show of sporting brilliance, and more a test of whoever melts the slowest. Let’s just hope there are enough fire brigade floats to cool everyone down.

Stage five of the Tour de France was primed for Tim Merlier and Soudal Quick-Step. Long, straight roads with few roundabouts and sharp bends lent itself perfectly to the Belgian team’s leadout train.

But then with 5.6km to go on the 2026 edition’s first sprint stage in Pau, the peloton split in two. A crash in the middle of the bunch brought down multiple riders, including half of Merlier’s eight-man team. The two principal actors in his sprint train – Jasper Stuyven and Bert van Lerberghe – were among those affected. Stuyven tore half of his skinsuit, and grazed most of his left leg and elbow.

Tom Steels, Soudal Quick-Step’s lead sports director at the race, knew immediately it would have negative consequences for Merlier’s chances. “That last corner to the right was a bit of a disaster,” Steels sighed. “The team were together, they crashed, and we lost most of the team.”

It meant Merlier had to go it alone. He produced a valiant effort, riding to third behind stage winner Olav Kooij of Decathlon CMA CGM, but Merlier didn’t see the positives.

“I don’t like to be third – I want to win. And even more in the Tour,” the 33-year-old told Cycling Weekly after the stage. “I’m looking forward to the next opportunities but every chance that is gone, is gone. I’m disappointed.”

Merlier, to many people the best sprinter in the game right now, was honest that the absence of Stuyven and Van Lerberghe in the finale hindered him. “It was a big shame that I missed these two strong guys to bring me into a good position towards the 5km point,” he said.

“I tried to gamble a little bit but in the Tour you can’t gamble – you need to get into position. I gave it a try, tried to hang onto some other lead-out trains, but I don’t like that. I prefer to do my own thing [with my team-mates].”

Under the flamme rouge, Merlier was quite far back in what was a vastly-reduced lead group, before finding a gap on the left of the road to power through to third. Kooij finished comfortably ahead of him, though. There wasn't really a contest.

“There were three or four mistakes too many from myself and that’s definitely why I lost too much speed,” Merlier critiqued himself. “Why I didn’t win the stage is because I lost too much energy trying to get myself back into a good position.”

Steels shared Merlier’s frustration, believing that with a leadout train he would have been victorious. “For sure, I have no doubt about it,” Steels said. “He had to do that last part all alone. The way he did it was perfect but he just lost a little bit of momentum in the last 300m.

“If you have two guys in front of you, you don’t have to think – you just have to follow. He jumped from wheel to wheel which takes a lot of power away. If he goes directly to the left he probably gets more speed but that’s a split second decision he had to make.”

Nonetheless, Quick-Step can take heart from Merlier’s performance. A knee injury hampered his spring campaign, but he has shown signs of the form he had last year when he won 16 races. A stage win at the Tour of Belgium, and three at the Tour of Hungary, indicated that he will be a contender on the Tour’s sprint days. Friday in Bordeaux is his next chance.

“This was exceptional circumstances," Steels said. "If you lose your whole team that’s in front of you and you have to do the last 5km alone surfing when you’re not a windsurfer, [it’s difficult]. But he looked for solutions and he did an excellent sprint that only a few sprinters in the world can do.

“It’s a pity because he had the legs, but onto the next one. He doesn’t have to doubt his condition or speed, that’s for sure.”

Merlier was reminded that in the pre-race press conference in Barcelona last week he struck a cautious note, refusing to big up his own chances. It’s clear from stage five, however, that if Merlier can count on his teammates he will be in contention plenty more times.

“I prefer to not look so confident but then do it with my legs rather than my words,” he said. “That’s the way I like it. That’s Tim Merlier.”

Torstein Træen completed his first day in the Tour de France yellow jersey on Wednesday's fifth stage, although it wasn't without incident – and tomorrow offers its own challenges too.

The peloton tackles its first hors-catégorie mountain on stage six in the form of the Col du Tourmalet, which itself is sandwiched in-between the cat-one Col d'Aspin and the cat-two finishing climb to Gavarnie-Gèdre.

In theory, his 7:53 lead over Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), should enable Træen to hold on to the yellow jersey. But, speaking looking ahead to it on Wednesday evening, he said "Tadej is Tadej" and nothing was guaranteed.

"We have to see how fast they're going. And of course, Tadej is Tadej, and I think if he goes full gas on the Tourmalet, maybe I will be behind. You don't know how much you will be losing. We've just got to see tomorrow."

The high temperatures, which cooled mid-week to a balmy 31deg C (88F) on stage five, are due to pick up again, which made things even less predictable, he said.

"We haven't had a lot of real mountain climbing yet," he added. "So we don't know what will happen, and then with this heat everything can happen, so you just have to hope and do your best."

The 30-year-old, who is a former Tour de Suisse stage winner and wore the leader's jersey at the Vuelta a España last year, came off his bike at one point on stage five in an incident he said he didn't know much about. "Suddenly I was on the ground," he said, adding that he was quickly paced back to the bunch and suffered "only a small cut on my knee".

How did he enjoy his first ever day in yellow, he was asked. "Yeah, quite nice," came the understated reply. "All the boys said I looked really well, really well. So, yeah, it was nice to have compliments from the boys.

"When you get cancer, you don't know what will happen," he added, referencing his 2022 testicular cancer diagnosis (which was successfully treated), "and I'm obviously quite happy to be back at a good level and leading the biggest race of the world."

Olav Kooij took a dramatic win on stage five of the 2026 Tour de France, after multiple riders crashed just outside 5km to go.

The Decathlon CMA CGM rider won on his first opportunity on his debut Tour, as Max Kanter (XDS Astana Team) and Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) took second and third respectively.

The first bunch sprint was always likely to be chaotic, but it was a relatively calm day for the majority of the stage, with just one rider, Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto Intermarché) escaping.

However, that changed in the final kilometres, after a crash split the bunch with 5.3km to go, with seven riders caught up in the carnage: Victor Campenaerts (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step), Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon), Michael Matthews (Team Jayco AlUla) and Stefano Oldani, Abel Balderstone and Alex Molenaar (all from Caja Rural - Seguros RGA).

Amid the mayhem that ensued after the crash, it looked for a moment like there might have been a time gap between Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), but both were recorded as coming in 14 seconds after the winner, and yellow jersey holder Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) was in the same group, so ultimately there were no major positions shuffles in the GC – in fact, the first 16 spots remain unchanged from yesterday.

Olav Kooij, 24, only joined Decathlon CMA CGM earlier this year, this is his first time at the Tour. He was injured or ill for the first half of this season, which meant he didn't race until end of May and had to really fight for selection.

"After a couple of hard days already, I had to wait to this day to get this first chance to sprint in the Tour, and to immediately win is unbelievable," said Kooij in his post-race interview.

"I think it means quite a lot, just in general, after a pretty tough spring, to get back to this level, to keep believing in yourself and just a few people who believe in you as well is all you need. To be here with the support of the team today was all I could ask for and they did a great job.

"I think it was quite an easy day until the final, so you know it will be hectic. The first sprint of the Tour, everyone is still really eager. I just managed to find my way a bit on my own in the end, but I found the right wheel, and I just wanted to have a chance to sprint today. When I saw the line I just went as hard as I could.

"We’ll enjoy this. There are many more days left in this Tour and we will just keep going and try to do our best every day, but for sure we’ll enjoy this one. We need to get there, day by day."

Riders endured another horrendously hot day in the saddle today, racing through an official extreme weather warning as the temperature in the shade pushed past 37°C, although for most part the peloton treated the undulating stage as something of a rolling rest day.  

One rider who buried himself was Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto Intermarché), who embarked on a solo breakaway very early on, and cut a lonely figure cycling along sun-blasted roads through the field-fringed rural landscape of the Hautes-Pyrénées – staying just ahead of the pack until 14km before the finish line at Pau.

In doing so Veistroffer bagged 25 points for the intermediate sprint (followed by Max Kanter from XDS Astana Team and Lidl – Trek’s Mads Pedersen, who was wearing the green jersey as the leader in the points classification). Under the new system, designed to benefit sprinters in the green jersey contest, 70 points were on offer today.

The route only featured one classified climb, Côte de Baleix, a 1km-long haul with an average gradient of 8.8% (max 10.7%), which Veistroffer was first to crest, earning himself another two points in the KOM competition and getting 3 seconds shaved off his time.

Shortly after the climb, British champion Fred Wright from Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling had a brief flurry in a small three-rider group ahead of the peloton with Kasper Asgreen (EF Education - EasyPost) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step), but it came to nought.

And with 14km to go, after riding on his own for over 130km, the peloton loomed behind Veistroffer, and the tenacious Frenchman was caught, having certainly seized the title of most combative rider of the day.  

Pau has featured an incredible 96 times on the route of the Tour de France, and hosted 77 finishes, with today’s scenes being right up there with the most dramatic.  

Results

Stage 5, Lannemezan > Pau, 158.3km

1. Olav Kooij (Ned) Decathlon CMA CGM, in 3:29:07
2. Max Kanter (Ger) XDS Astana
3. Tim Merlier (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step
4. Huub Artz (Ned) Lotto Intermarché
5. Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech
6. Biniam Girmay (Eri) NSN Cycling
7. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek
8. Milan Fretin (Bel) Cofidis
9. Anthony Turgis (Fra) TotalEnergies
10. Søren Wærenskjold (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, all at same time

Tour de France 2026 general classification after stage five

1. Torstein Træen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, in 16:32:07
2. Sean Quinn (USA) EF Education-EasyPost, +28s
3. Mathias Vaceck (Cze) Lidl-Trek, +3:50
4. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in +7:53
5. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, at same time
6. Ramses Debruyne (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech, +8:06
7. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +8:16
8. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +8:17
9. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +8:20
10. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +8:41

When Tom Pidcock left Ineos Grenadiers for Q36.5 Cycling Team two winters ago, the British star wasn't only swapping a fading superpower for an up-and-coming, ambitious start-up - he was jumping from one billionaire-backed team to another.

The difference between Ineos owner Jim Ratcliffe and Q36.5 bankroller Ivan Glasenberg is that the former appears to be looking for an exit from cycling while the latter is just getting started in the sport.

Glasenberg, a mining tycoon worth $13.9bn (£10.4bn) according to Forbes (about £3bn less than Ratcliffe), has emerged as a key figure within cycling politics in the past year. He has shown serious intent to overhaul the sport's business model, and to make his Pidcock-headlined team one of the strongest.

It's a bold vision worth shouting about - or so you might think. But the curious thing is, Glasenberg is a hard man to reach, and an even harder one to profile. Intensely private, he almost never speaks to the media and is reluctant to discuss his cycling ambitions, despite being a regular presence at the sport's biggest races. In three-and-a-half years as owner of what is now Pinarello-Q36.5, no quote attributed to Glasenberg has appeared in the team's press communications. In 2011, the Financial Times described him as "one of the great enigmas of the corporate world" - a label that fits his role in cycling too.

His curiously low profile should not be interpreted as a sign that Glasenberg, whose team is making their Tour de France debut this July, isn't serious about transforming the sport. "He's got a big voice and people seem to listen to him," said one source who has interacted with Glasenberg frequently in the past six months. Word within cycling has it that the UCI, the sport's governing body, is acutely attuned to his ambitions.

Born in 1957 in a wealthy Johannesburg suburb to a Lithuanian father and South African mother, Glasenberg showed signs of being a sharp, subversive operator from an early age. Former teachers, cited in previous profiles published elsewhere, described him as "outspoken, cheeky" and not "always accepting that the teacher was correct". Before studying to become an accountant, he'd had his own elite sporting ambitions. One of the country's leading race walkers - reportedly a junior national champion in the late 1970s - he had hoped to represent South Africa at the 1984 Olympic Games.

International opposition to South Africa's apartheid policies scuppered that dream. Glasenberg later obtained Israeli citizenship through his Jewish heritage, but he was unable to compete for his adopted country owing to apparent bureaucratic complications. The rejection from sport's biggest stage is said to still irk him, but it hastened his move into the even more competitive world of international business.

In 1984, he married Elana Beverley Orelowitz - they have two children - and joined Marc Rich & Co AG, later renamed Glencore. The Swiss-based commodities giant specialises in mining and trading raw materials and goods around the world. Glasenberg began in the coal division, and soon made his mark, earning the nickname 'King of Coal'. As Glencore grew, so did his standing, and in 2002 he became CEO. In 2013, two years after the company floated on the FTSE 100 - an event that laid bare Glasenberg's vast personal wealth - he oversaw the acquisition and merger with Xstrata, creating one of the world's largest commodities companies.

Operating in more than 30 countries and boasting around 140,000 employees and contractors, Glencore is said to have more ships than the Royal Navy. It is responsible for 60% of the world's tradable zinc, half of the globe's supply of copper, and also trades 9% of the grain and 3% of the oil markets. Essentially, the world pivots on Glencore's trading, with Glasenberg the man at the steering wheel for almost two decades - until stepping down as CEO in 2021. He remains the company's largest shareholder and was part of recent failed merger talks between Glencore and Rio Tinto, which if successful would have formed a behemoth company worth some $240bn (£179bn).

Glasenberg's rise was partly built on 16-hour workdays. In a rare interview with the Wall Street Journal, in 2013, he refuted the notion of a work-life balance. "No. We work," he insisted. "You don't come here to take life easy. And we all get rich from it, so, you know, there's a benefit from it." There is little evidence of him splurging that wealth on a lavish lifestyle. Fifteen years ago, the Guardian reported that he owned only one house - a discreet modern villa in Switzerland - while one business associate is reported as saying he is "a positive outlier. So many of these guys are poseurs. He's not a poseur."

Poseur or not, he is without doubt a driven and uncompromising businessman. That same Guardian report stated that failure is his "biggest fear of every minute", while Reuters reported that he is "well known to drive a hard bargain and will not easily give in", adding that his notable personality traits are "his fiery temper and his charm".

As CEO of one of the world's most important trading companies, Glasenberg has mixed it with the world's elite. In 2017, Russian president Vladimir Putin personally awarded him the Order of Friendship after Glencore invested $10.2bn (£7.6bn) in Russia's state oil producer Rosneft (the company sold its 23.46% stake in Rosneft in 2025). It is far from his only controversy or questionable association.

His early years as Glencore CEO were spent dealing with the legacy of predecessor Marc Rich, which included accusations of illegal dealings with apartheid South Africa, the USSR, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Under Glasenberg's leadership, Glencore continued to face allegations of human rights abuses and ethical failings, including the forced relocation of entire villages in Colombia to make way for mine expansion, profiting from child labour in the DR Congo, and releasing waste acid into rivers in the same country. These are claims Glencore, and Glasenberg, have always strenuously denied.

In 2021, at the age of 64, and presumably with more time on his hands, Glasenberg decided to invest in cycling. He first became the owner of the then small Swiss apparel brand Q36.5 in 2021, and in 2023 he bought Italian bike brand Pinarello for a reported €200m.

He's also said to have stakes in SRM power meters and the nutrition brand Amacx. He told Canada's Globe and Mail in 2021: "I love sport and I am doing this for pleasure," and that "no one has ever put luxury sports brands together successfully." His purchase of Pinarello in particular was a nod towards that ambition.

In 2022, when fellow South African Doug Ryder was looking to build a new professional cycling team after the collapse of Qhubeka NextHash, Glasenberg spotted an opportunity. "Q36.5 had been looking to sponsor a team with their jerseys but they were unable to reach a suitable agreement with the two teams they were in discussions with," team manager Ryder explained to CW.

"I then approached Q36.5 regarding sponsoring our team, and they agreed on the basis that the team would carry the Q36.5 name." With that, Glasenberg became cycling's latest billionaire backer, following in the footsteps of Ratcliffe, Sylvan Adams, Igor Makarov and Oleg Tinkov.

CW spotted Glasenberg outside his team's bus at last year's Giro d'Italia, seeming to confirm that he takes a hands-on role, but we were informed that he does not give media interviews. "Ivan attends training camps for a few days at a time but leaves the day-to-day management of the team to the managers," Ryder said.

When Pidcock won two stages and the GC of the AlUla Tour in early 2025, his first race in what has been undeniably a very successful partnership to date, the Briton said: "Ivan is the reason I'm on this team." Asked to elaborate, Pidcock refused. Similarly, Ryder didn't engage with more specific questions about Glasenberg's involvement with the team. Employees appear to be briefed on maintaining Glasenberg's low public profile - a marked contrast to how Adams and Tinkov ran their respective teams.

In private, however, Glasenberg has been stretching his influence, leading the latest team-led reform project, TeamCo, which aims to improve teams' financial sustainability and make cycling more attractive to a wider audience. One person who has been in TeamCo meetings said that "Ivan can be convincing when he wants to be, and charming", while the same source and others also highlighted how he has brought his reputation as a hard-headed negotiator to the table. If TeamCo succeeds in wresting some power away from the UCI and the biggest race organisers and handing it to the teams, he could become the most transformative billionaire the sport ever known.

One thing is for sure: Glasenberg won't be daunted by cycling's thorny politics. He is, after all, a man who has brokered multibillion-dollar deals with authoritarian strongmen in some of the world's most volatile jurisdictions.

As one of his peers said of him in 2021: "Ivan is the ultimate competitor, and that applies across business and sport." His return to elite sport, almost half a century after his own Olympic rejection, is more than just dipping his toes in. When Glasenberg commits, he doesn't rest until he has bent the objective to his will. As one source succinctly put it: "He rarely invests and loses."

The 2026 Tour de France started on Saturday 4 July, with 184 riders grouped into 23 teams setting off from Barcelona to contest the greatest bike race on the globe. Over the next three weeks, these riders will race along a route that’s 3,320km (2,063.4 miles) long, tackling almost 50,000 metres of ascent in the process.

But not everyone will make it to the streets of Paris to ride around the Montmartre circuit.

Eight riders have so far left the race, with the big news today that Torstein Træen had been forced to abandon after his yellow jersey dream came to a disastrous end on Col du Tourmalet during stage six, with a crash leaving the Uno-X Mobility rider injured and in pain, with what turned out to be multiple fractured ribs. The Norwegian, who had already lost his GC lead to an imperious Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), managed to finish the stage, but withdrew before the start of stage seven.

Movistar's Cian Uijtdebroeks bailed on Thursday, while Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal–Quick-Step) and Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) also failed to finish stage six.

Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) being the. The Dutchman collided with a hay bale in the chaotic final kilometres of stage five, which saw a pile up just before the safety zone on the approach to the finish line in Pau. Tour debutant Molenaar cleared a UCI concussion protocol – despite later admitting that he couldn't remember the crash – and finished in second-to-last place, but an x-ray showed he had sustained a fracture of the metacarpal in his right hand, and he didn't start stage six.

We might not have seen the almost Hunger Games-rate of attrition that was on show at the Giro d’Italia this year, but there haven’t been any massive crashes so far - beyond bingles during the team time trial, and a stack on stage three that left Visma-Lease a Bike domestique Bruno Armirail with an injured knee and affected Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Netcompany-Ineos riders Tobias Foss, Thymen Arensman, and Michał Kwiatkowski.

But as the Tour goes on, and the mercury keeps creeping north in the south of France – to the point where spectators were told to stay away from certain sections due to the strain being placed on emergency services dealing with wildfires – some riders are beginning to fail and bail, before they can be caught by the broomwagon.

Clément Berthet from Groupama-FDJ United was the first to fall, with the climber failing to start stage two, withdrawing from the race after sustaining an injury in a crash with teammate Guillaume Martin halfway through the 19.6km time trial on day one.

Lotto-Intermarché’s Arnaud De Lie was the next to throw the towel in. While young Mexican sensation Isaac del Toro nailed a near-perfect ride to take victory on stage two, De Lie visibly struggled with illness throughout the day and finished last. As the route passed from Spain into France on long-and-lumpy stage three, amid a heatwave, it was no surprise to see the 24-year-old Belgian sprinter withdrawing from the race, although he soldiered on to within 10km of the finish line.

On stage four, when Mads Pedersen from Lidl-Trek sprinted to victory and fellow Scandinavian Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) grabbed the yellow jersey, Kelland O'Brien from Jayco AlUla was unable to cope with the heat, and crossed the line a few minutes after the imposed cut-off, meaning he is out of the race.

Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) came off the worst in a crash on stage five of the Tour in Pau, suffering concussion, which forced him to abandon. The next day, Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) abandoned the race early on stage six, after struggling at the Tour previously.

• How to watch stage five of the 2026 Tour de France
• Who is currently leading the 2026 Tour de France?

Riders who have abandoned the 2026 Tour de France

• Clément Berthet (Groupama-FDJ United) – DNS stage 2 after crashing on stage 1
• Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) – Abandoned during stage 3 with illness
• Kelland O'Brien (Jayco AlUla) – Missed cut-off on stage 4
• Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) – DNS stage 6 after crashing on stage 5
• Arvid de Kleijn (Tudor Pro Cycling) – DNF stage 6
• Bert Van Lerberghe (Soudal–Quick-Step) – DNF stage 6
• Cian Uijtdebroeks (Movistar) – DNF stage 6
• Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) - DNS stage 7 after crashing on stage 6

You know things are serious when the spectators of the Tour de France are asked not to attend the 40km finale of a stage. Even during the Covid 19-hit Tour of 2020, it was only the starts and finishes that were really impacted by restrictions.

However, as the peloton heads for its first proper sprint, the now well-known technical run into Pau—the conversation isn’t just about who has the best legs after a tough start to the Tour amongst the fastmen - it’s about who can survive this historic early-summer heatwave, where we are seeing near 45°C temperatures, and raging wildfires become the talking points of the first week.

To battle these brutal conditions, Tour de France riders need to adapt to the heat, with teams deploying a range of low- and high-tech solutions. The high-tech ones are ever-evolving, with teams now being offered complete kits designed specifically to handle these extremes. The Rapha Pro Team Ghost Air jersey uses internal 3D-fabric channelling to maximise airflow against the skin. Meanwhile, Tom Pidcock's Pinarello Q36.5 squad utilises their title sponsor's advanced yarn engineered to manage and lower core body temperatures.

Not all teams have access to these high-tech solutions, and many still use tried-and-tested, simple, low-tech solutions to keep cool. Just this week, the beautifully simple "ice sock" has officially been clamped down on and banned due to potential violations of strict aerodynamic rules. We also saw NetCompany Ineos bizarrely sitting with their arms in ice baths ahead of the stage one TTT, employing the interesting 'wrist-cooling hack'.

While even the smallest World Tour teams can rely on a fleet of team cars packed with ice and domestics to ferry them back and forth, we mere mortals don’t have that luxury as solo, unsupported riders out on our Sunday morning rides.

So, here is my ultimate gear guide to beat the heat on your own summer rides.

Everything I have featured in this piece comes highly rated and fully reviewed by a member of the Cycling Weekly team, or is a personal recommendation based on our years of experience suffering in the saddle.

All the products above are intended largely for our US readers; however, check the widget below for all the products featured above and the best deals on them in your region.

Peter Sagan, who for almost a decade was resplendent in green every July, has said that his record of winning seven Tour de France points jerseys will be broken at some point.

In 2019, Slovakian Sagan beat Erik Zabel’s total of six green jerseys, a figure that many thought was unlikely to ever be bettered. Staying at the top for so many years, and avoiding illnesses, crashes and other episodes of misfortune, is no mean feat.

Since Sagan claimed his seventh and final points jersey, six other riders have won the points classification. Other than Sagan and Zabel, no one has defended the jersey since Uzbek Djamolidine Abdoujaparov in 1995. That’s proof that winning more than one green jersey is a difficult task.

But speaking to Cycling Weekly and The Athletic just before the current Tour de France, Sagan, 36, said he was sure that one day a rider would come along and win eight points jerseys.

“I had my records: seven green jerseys and three World Championships in a row, but I won’t have them forever,” he said. “Even Mark Cavendish won’t [have his record].

“He was fighting a lot to win 35 stages of the Tour de France and he beat Eddy Merckx’s record [in 2024], but in the future somebody is going to beat it. That’s life.” Tadej Pogačar, counting 22 Tour stage wins, is certainly a contender to better Cavendish’s record.

Sagan was racing in the era of Cavendish, Marcel Kittel André Greipel, yet every year he went to the Tour and denied the fast men the jersey that is nominally awarded to the best sprinter.

He made it look so routine – but it wasn’t always a walk in the park. “Every green jersey was different,” Sagan said. “Some of them I won very easily because the stages were good for me and I took a lot of points with second and third places, as well as in the intermediate sprints.

“But some years I went for the green jersey and didn’t win a stage. I was second, third, fifth a lot.”

Was that frustrating? “No, because I was focusing on the green jersey. I said it was OK because I had a good advantage. I wasn’t a pure sprinter but I held my own on the climbs and breakaways.

“In my first Tour I won three stages and the green jersey and I expected that from myself every year afterwards, but it was hard to win because every Tour was difficult.

“Sometimes I won stages but crashed and it was hard to finish the race and to take the green jersey. Other times I won one stage but it was also hard because there were three different riders in the battle for green so it was hard to control the breakaway to ensure that nobody was in there for the intermediate sprints.

“It was after I won my fourth green jersey that I said I wanted to go for the record. But it was never easy.

“If somebody asks me now who will win the Tour de France this year, I say Pogačar, but who knows how the first 10 days will go. Who knows if he’ll have bad luck or get sick. Three weeks is a long time and every Tour is different.”

Where green will land in Paris at the end of this July is a matter of debate. Mads Pedersen, winner of stage four, is the current occupant.

In an attempt to reduce the prospect of Pogačar winning the points classification – he was second last year – ASO, the Tour organisers, have upped the number of points gained in a sprint stage from 50 to 70.

“They’ve done well because it means a pure sprinter can win it,” Sagan said of the rule change, “but it’s going to be harder for riders like me and Michael Matthews [winner in 2017 after Sagan was excluded].”

Sagan raced his last Tour in 2023, but didn’t retire until the following summer, when he competed for a small Continental team Pierre Baguette on the road and mountain bike.

In early 2024, he experienced arrhythmia inflammation in which his heart rate exceeded 200 beats per minute. He underwent two surgeries to correct the issue.

“It was OK because I was not dying but it was scary what was happening,” he said. “Even the doctors couldn’t see anything when I was doing efforts. It was only after they put a controller under my skin when I continued to ride my mountain bike could they see that I had this arrhythmia.

“After they found it, performed a procedure, and everything was good. It disappeared.”

Since his retirement, Sagan has focused on his various sponsorship roles – he recently launched his own non-alcoholic beer – and even appeared on Let’s Dance, Slovakia’s version of Strictly Come Dancing.

He’s still cycling regularly – albeit a mountain bike rather than a road bike – but doesn’t foresee a return to the sport

“I don’t see myself [as a sports director or manager],” he said. “For now I don’t want to do this because I like what I’m doing now.”

Felix Engelhardt bagged his first national championship less than a week before the Tour de France Grand Depart commenced in Barcelona, Spain, and while this signaled the German would be coming into the race in fine fettle, it also meant his Jayco-AlUla mechanics needed to work around the clock to build him a very special bike. We spotted Felix's bike in the team paddocks while compiling our mega gallery of all the TT and road bike tech from the Tour de France Grand Depart.

It’s become increasingly fashionable for national, continental, and world champions to have a custom paint job – not only does it add a bonus layer of pageantry to the quotidian themes comprising the WorldTour peloton, but it also honours their achievements. For Felix Engelhardt, his Bundesflagge-themed Giant Propel Advanced SL nearly didn't make it to Barcelona.

Following his victory in Bad Liebenstein, where he beat Lennart Jasch and Nico Denz to the line, a quick turnaround was needed to ensure the German had something special for the Tour de France. Jayco-AlUla sent a raw Giant Propel Advanced SL to Unlimited Colors, based in Venhorst, the Netherlands, and let the creatives loose to create a truly unique yet sophisticated livery to celebrate Engelhardt’s win while still retaining the team-specific logo placements. The result? A tricolour German flag design applied to mimic fire, complete with a Propel flame glyph on the top tube.

At 5 feet 11 inches, Engelhardt rides the all-new Giant Propel Advanced SL in size medium, which made headlines in March for its subtly tweaked tube profiles and exceptionally low total system weight of 6.8kg. Giant’s in-house component brand Cadex supplies the rolling sock – pictured here are Ultra 50 hookless wheels wrapped in 30mm Aero Cotton tyres. The wheels are not only an impressively aero option but are also very light and come tricked out with a R3-C40 Aero hub and carbon spoke configuration.

Unsurprisingly, the Giant is built around a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, complete with a 55/40T, 11-34T chainset, and power meter, and 165mm crankarms. The bike also benefits from a 3D-printed Cadex saddle and integrated Giant Contact SLR Aero handlebar configuration.

An interesting observation is the stack of 2.5cm spacers under the stem, a move that prioritises comfort over a three-week Grand Tour – and something I listed in my 2026 Tour de France tech trend predictions.

Other notable bits and bobs include a 3D-printed race number holder, Fouriers chain catcher, Elite Leggero Carbon bottle cages, Shimano Dura-Ace pedals, and a fabric transponder strip on the fork.

Giant Propel Advanced SL specs

• Frame: Propel Advanced SL
• Cockpit: Giant Contact SLR Aero
• Seatpost: Giant Vector integrated
• Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2, 54/40T, 11-34T
• Wheelset: Cadex Ultra 50, 50mm
• Tyres: Cadex Aero Cotton, 30mm
• Saddle: Cadex Amp 3D

As new Tour de France GC leader Torstein Træen is already finding out, being the wearer of the yellow jersey in the Tour de France is at once the most privileged and the most onerous job in cycling. But when your name is Tadej Pogačar that pressure is doubled.

No wonder he seemed perfectly happy to have handed it over on stage four. He'll pass the next few days, maybe more, in comparative anonymity – or as close to that as Tadej Pogačar wearing the rainbow bands can ever come in the Tour de France – while Træen fields the various podium and press conference duties required of the yellow jersey.

Also ahead of Pogačar are Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost) and Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek), who are at 28sec and 3:50 to Træn, while Pogačar is languishing at full 7:53 in arrears. The stage, from Carcassonne to Foix, was won by Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek).

That isn't to say the maillot jaune will be forgotten about by Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG, far from it. Following stage four, he spoke to journalists as he warmed-down on a trainer in the still-broiling shade behind the UAE bus in Foix.

"I mean, obviously the goal is to take back the yellow jersey," he said. "But yeah, you never know. They are really good, and it's quite a big gap, so we will see. Now we will fight, but yeah, I think they can keep the yellow jersey for a long time."

With the mercury soaring to 39deg C (102F) along the course, according to Cycling Weekly's overworked car, cooling protocols in the peloton were at the forefront of every team's strategies. Race regulations were also amended to allow more water bottles to be handed up at feed zones.

Pogačar was affected just as much as anyone else, saying: "When we started, I had a full headache, and I was thinking this is gonna be one long day," he said. "But then we kept showering each other with the water, and all was good."

Exactly how much performance benefit there was in being able to skip duties such as press conferences and podium duties was hard to measure, Pogačar said, adding: "But some days there is probably a lot of stress with media, and some days it's easy to do. It just depends on the day, and it's hard to tell.

"Today will be one-and-a-half hours less obligations, so it definitely helps with recovery," he added. "But I think now I'm pretty used to doing all the podium stuff, and we've got good protocol, and I have good help around me, good people that help me to stay cool and calm, and yeah, to recover as best as possible, even when we have to do the podium."

Pogačar also had a word of praise for the Lidl-Trek team, saying that if a team of their calibre went in the breakaway, then it would likely succeed.

They did a "super-good job", he said, but praised the efforts of his own team too. "We kept it cool, calm, and we arrived at the finish, I think, not spending a crazy amount of energy, obviously. I think Nils [Politt], Florian [Vermeersch] and Tim [Wellens] were super good today, dividing the work," he said.

The next week or so looks like friendly territory for a rider looking to hang on to yellow for a while. Assuming Træen survives the big mountains of stage six, which crosses the cols d'Aspin and Tourmalet, with an uphill finish at Gavarnie-Gèdre, and the hard and mountainous stage 10 to Le Lorian, he could certainly keep it till stage 14 – a 10-day tenure. That's when the big mountains of the final week kick in, starting with a finish at Le Markstein.

And at the end of that, Træen may well feel more than happy to hand back those media and podium duties – perhaps to Pogačar, but not necessarily – and with it the yellow jersey.

When Uno-X Mobility were awarded a Tour de France wildcard for the 2023 edition, the news was greeted with shock and joy. Jens Haugland, the team’s then manager, said he “just started screaming” when he found out. He then made a vow: “We’re not going to be defensive – we’re going to be very positive and attacking in our racing.”

Four years on, the Norwegian team (with a few Danish riders along for the ride) have not only come good on Haugland's words, but fully established themselves as Tour de France regulars, and winners.

The first year was all about being seen, and the team did that, recording 11 top-10s. Invited back again in 2024, Jonas Abrahamsen went in more breakaways than gruppettos, before the same man returned 12 months later and pulled off a gutsy stage win just four weeks after breaking his collarbone.

Now the team in red has swapped its colours for yellow.

On stage four of the 2026 Tour, Torstein Træen, cancer survivor and leader of last year’s Vuelta a España for four days, was one of 34 riders to go up the road in the first big breakaway of the race. The group was whittled down to 11 towards the finale and with Lidl-Trek counting three riders in it, it was inevitable that Lidl-Trek's Mads Pedersen would win the sprint finish.

Træen and American Sean Quinn of EF Education-EasyPost were the only riders in with a chance of taking the race lead off Tadej Pogačar, who was happy to hand it over. Træen was five minutes and six seconds adrift of the defending champion, and Quinn was 28 seconds further back. The gap between them and the peloton was around three minutes for most of the stage, but then in the final 80km it stretched further and further out. Træen had time to prepare for the biggest moment of his life: he would be in yellow, the leader of the Tour de France.

“What can I say? I’m always happy to perform at the Tour, the biggest race in the world, and most of all I’m grateful that the team selected me,” he said, resplendent in the world’s most coveted cycling jersey.

In the previous two seasons, Træen raced for Bahrain-Victorious, leaving the team that had developed him. He did well at Bahrain – that Vuelta lead, of course, plus a stage win at the Tour de Suisse – but the grass isn’t always greener. Træen feels at home at Uno-X and recognised that they are now deserved Tour de France regulars.

They received wildcards for the past three years, but now they’re automatically invited as one of the 18 WorldTour teams after being promoted from the second division. Far more established teams like Groupama-FDJ United, Movistar and Picnic PostNL have done less than Uno-X in the Tour since 2023. Often much less. Their participation is no fluke.

“To be honest, it’s the same team as before – the people are the same, and how everyone is working is the same,” Træen said.

“I knew how they were working, and with Thor Hushovd coming in [as team manager in 2024] it was really exciting. They are all still my friends and I still spoke to them even when I wasn’t on the team. It was always a dream to come back and be with them, and, [after] seeing how they were performing last Tour, it’s just a pleasure to be here.”

Hushovd, who was the first Norwegian to lead the Tour de France all the way back in 2004, summarised the scale of the achievement for a team that imposes its own self-limitations all in the name of developing homegrown talent.

“It’s a big moment for us,” said Hushovd, the 2010 world champion. “We have a different project to others. We are a Scandinavian team with a Scandinavian identity, with riders only from Norway and Denmark.

“It makes the road more complicated because we cannot pick and choose riders from different countries, and we also have less budget, but if you do a good job and do things properly, then we stand here today and lead the Tour de France.”

Given the parcours in the forthcoming week, coupled with Træen’s 7:53 advantage to Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, it’s very feasible that the Norwegian will be in yellow for quite a while – possibly until the final week, when the Vosges mountains are followed by a lumpy time trial and then the Alps. Træen could lead the race for more days than anyone else in this Tour.

Meanwhile his teammate Tobias Halland Johannessen will likely be accompanying him in the GC top-10, as the Uno-X aim for another high placing. “He was sixth last year and we will try to do better this year,” Hushovd said. “We think we’re in a good position and leading the Tour de France gives more motivation to the group.”

A lot of teams handed wildcard entries to the world’s biggest bike race don’t do much beyond appearing in breakaways. There’s nothing wrong with that – they have smaller squads and smaller budgets compared to the heavyweights, and a doomed day out front is often the best way of ensuring visibility.

But just like they have done in a number of areas, Uno-X have done things differently. They used their debut Tour in 2023 as a stepping stone to greater things. Træen gaining yellow in 40-degree heat in Foix further cemented their reputation as Tour mainstays.

“Leading the Tour de France is already a success,” Hushovd added, “but we know we want much more.”

Twenty eight seconds. That’s all that separated Sean Quinn from taking the yellow jersey at the Tour de France on stage three. It’s the time it might take him to put on a pair of cycling shoes, do a few pre-race stretches, or make a recovery shake. On Tuesday in Foix, it felt like an eternity.

The former US national road champion was part of a 34-man breakaway that formed out of Carcassonne. The second best placed in GC among the escapees, he began the day more than five and a half minutes behind the race leader Tadej Pogačar, and gained almost 13 minutes at the line with seventh place.

The result catapulted him up the standings. But only to second overall. The yellow jersey went instead to Uno-X’s Torstein Traæn, the breakaway’s highest GC contender by 28 seconds, who Quinn couldn’t shake off in the blazing heat of the Pyrenees. Lidl-Trek's Mads Pedersen took stage honours.

“I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get yellow, didn’t win the stage,” Quinn told Cycling Weekly, a resigned tone in his voice, as he stood in the shade of his EF Education-EasyPost bus. “But [Lidl-]Trek was super-strong today, and so was Torstein [Træen]. Maybe in a few days’ time we’ll see how the race develops.”

Not since Greg Lemond in 1991 has an American worn the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. (Yes, Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, David Zabriskie and George Hincapie have led the race since, but their results were later scratched off for using performance-enhancing drugs).

In the years since, Neilson Powless has come the closest – within four seconds after stage six in 2022. However, the wait for a star-spangled Tour leader now extends to three and a half decades.

Tom Southam, one of EF Education-EasyPost’s sports directors, hatched a plan to try and change that on Monday evening. “We thought it was possible today,” he said. “Andreas [Klier, sports director] and I spoke about it last night, and then we spoke about it all together with Charly [Wegelius, sports director] this morning.

“It wasn’t like we all sat on the bus and said, ‘Right, we’re going to go and take the yellow jersey.’ But we knew in the back of our minds that only a certain group of riders can be strong enough to go into the break, and [Quinn] was one of the best placed of that group who could manage to do it.

“We had in mind that the yellow jersey is always special – to take it is almost rarer than winning a stage.”

Over the last few editions of the race, EF have proved themselves capable of masterminding a stint in the race lead. They're one of only a handful of teams that have pierced through the dominance of UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike, who seem to swap the yellow jersey like twins sharing clothes.

Still, EF's Ben Healy snatched it for two days last year, Richard Carapaz for one in 2024. Might Quinn be the team's next Tour star? In the former American champion, the sports directors saw a rider brave enough to take it on.

“He gave it a good crack,” Southam said. “Especially with the heat, it was more about trying to find a way to crack Torstein Traæen, which isn’t easy; he is where he is on GC because he’s already ridden faster than Sean so far. He’s a good cyclist, he can climb well.”

And so, following Quinn closely across the line, the yellow jersey dream went to Traæn.

The reality was disheartening for the American. “I think, as a pro athlete, you’re usually going to have the mindset of what you could have done differently,” he said.

“Being second feels pretty much the same as being 56th, or whatever I was yesterday [26th – ed]. It doesn't change your life. I'm still the same guy.”

It might not have been what Quinn came for, but being second at the Tour is still something very few cyclists will ever get to say. “He’s a great kid,” said Southam, “a nice guy to have around. I hope for some big success for him.”

In the end, it looked quite easy for Mads Pedersen as he sprinted clear to victory on stage four of the 2026 Tour de France in Foix. However, it was anything but easy, on a day where temperatures headed towards 40°C.

The Lidl-Trek rider was multiple bike lengths clear at the end on Tuesday, but it came after a brutal day of racing in the south of France, with the win coming from a gigantic breakaway.

Pedersen's team controlled the escape perfectly, with Quinn Simmons and Mathias Vacek putting their all in to deliver their Dane to victory. There was also delight for another Nordic rider in the break, as Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) took enough time to step into the yellow jersey, as the peloton rolled in minutes behind.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is now in fourth overall, 7:53 behind Træen, just ahead of Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), another rider who spent the day in the break.

There were repeated attacks in the final two hours of racing, as those in the day's escape sought to shake things up and prevent Pedersen from being there at the finish, knowing the Dane's speed. However, Lidl-Trek were attentive to all moves, shutting down attempted attacks, particularly from the Movistar pair of Pablo Castrillo and Raul García Pierna, which led Pedersen to the perfect position to power to the win.

Notably, this was the Dane's first win of the season, coming months after he crashed and broke his collarbone and left wrist.

"I would say this was a masterpiece in teamwork," he said post-race on TV. "Maybe not climbing, I was suffering a lot on the last climb, but with Quinn and Vacek there it was a great day. They did incredible on the climbs to pace it well for me, and make sure we didn't lose too much time over the top. They were machines from there to the finish line. What a team effort and what a team win today.

"I had a good talk with Luca our team manager [the outgoing Luca Guercilena] before the race, and he said please win me a stage, please do it early in the race, and he said this would be a good one for me. I would say this stage is for Luca and all the good years we had together. I'm really thankful for everything he has done for me. And also to point out that he gave me a lot of pressure to win today."

"At one point you have to live with it and do what you can today," he added on the weather. "And honestly, to be in a breakaway with a car that's there all the time it makes it easier to cool down and again when we're talking about team efforts, it's not just about those on the bike. We have so many on the road with water and ice as well to cool down. We went through a few bottles today to cool down, but it helps to have a good team."

Asked about his green jersey chances, Pedersen said: "It would have been lovely to beat Girmay and Jasper in the intermediate sprint, but at least I'm picking up 50 points on the finish line here. It's a really good day for us."

After Monday's stage three saw the break's dream's ended by UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Pogačar, there was an enormous fight to get into the day's big move, which went almost from the gun.

34 riders made it in the end, which was pegged at around three minutes for a while, before their advantage ballooned out. There were only five teams who didn't make it in the selection: UAE, Visma-Lease a Bike, Decathlon CMA CGM, XDS Astana, and Tudor Pro Cycling.

The lucky 34 were: Nico Denz and Jan Tratnik (both Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe); Mads Pedersen, Mathias Vacek, Quinn Simmons (all Lidl-Trek), Sean Quinn, Michael Valgren and Georg Steinhauser (all EF Education-EasyPost); Robert Stannard and Vlad Van Mechelen (both Bahrain Victorious); Kévin Vauquelin (Netcompany-Ineos); Pascal Eenkhorn and Jasper Stuyven (both Soudal Quick-Step); Ramses Debruyne, Edward Planckaert and Jasper Philipsen (all Alpecin-Premier Tech); Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla); Torsten Træen (Uno-X Mobility); Biniam Girmay and Marco Frigo (both NSN Cycling); Pablo Castrillo, Raul García Pierna and Nelson Oliveira (all Movistar); Georg Zimmerman (Lotto-Intermarché); Ion Izagirre and Alex Kirsch (both Cofidis); Quentin Hermans and Brent Van Moer (both Q36.5 Pinarello); Romain Grégoire and Ewan Costiou (both Groupama-FDJ United); Alexandre Delettre (TotalEnergies); Frank van den Broek (Picnic PostNL); and Alex Molenaar and Joel Nicolau (both Caja Rural-Seguros RGA).

After the intermediate sprint, which was won by Girmay, he and Philipsen dropped back. It then took until 83km for the breakaway to properly split up, with Tratnik heading up the road with Vacek, and they were joined later by Kirsch. Their efforts lasted around 40km until they were finally collected by what remained of the break on the Col de Motségur.

Further on the climb, around 11 or 12 riders were left in the group at the front, as Simmons pushed on. Attacks kept coming, particularly from the Movistar duo of Castrillo and García Pierna. They were trying to break the bunch, in order to distance Pedersen.

Over the top, Debruyne, Træen, Frigo and the Movistar duo escaped, but they were closely followed by the Lidl-Trek trio, Quinn, and Vauquelin. The yellow jersey at this point looked like it would be heading the way of USA’s Quinn.

10 riders were together with 24km to go: Pedersen, Simmons, Vacek, Quinn, Vauquelin, Debruyne, Træen, Frigo, Castrillo and García Pierna. At this point, the peloton were over 10 minutes in arrears, while those dropped from the front were at around 48 seconds.

There were late nerves for Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) after a puncture, but the British rider was able to make it back into the peloton.

The attacks started coming again with 9km to go, as García Pierna made a dig, with Simmons in hot pursuit. However, nothing stuck, and Lidl-Trek were able to deliver Pedersen to victory.

Results

Tour de France 2026 stage four: Carcassonne > Foix (181.9km)

1. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek, in 4:10:45
2. Quinn Simmons (USA) Lidl-Trek
3. Raúl García Pierna (Esp) Movistar
4. Marco Frigo (Ita) NSN Cycling
5. Ramses Debruyne (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech
6. Kévin Vauquelin (Fra) Netcompany-Ineos
7. Sean Quinn (USA) EF Education-EasyPost
8. Torstein Træen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility
9. Pablo Castrillo (Esp) Movistar
10. Mathias Vaceck (Cze) Lidl-Trek, all at same time

General classification after stage four

1. Torstein Træen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, in 13:02:46
2. Sean Quinn (USA) EF Education-EasyPost, +28s
3. Mathias Vaceck (Cze) Lidl-Trek, +3:50
4. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in +7:53
5. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, at same time
6. Ramses Debruyne (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech, +8:06
7. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +8:16
8. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +8:17
9. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +8:20
10. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +8:41

How many Tour de France stages do you think Tadej Pogačar will win this edition? Before this year, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider had won 21 times across six races, so an average of 3.5 stages per race, or a win every six days, if you prefer that metric. For context, Marcel Kittel won 14 stages in six Tours, 2.3 a race, or a win every seven days, in total. Kittel was a dominant sprinter, while Pogačar is a general classification rider.

After three stages of the 2026 Tour de France, Pogačar has already won a 22nd stage, putting him just 13 behind the record held by Mark Cavendish. Feasibly, the Slovenian could win another five stages; even when he finished second at the 2023 race, he won two. That doesn’t leave many opportunities for other teams.

Stage two was won by his teammate, Isaac del Toro, while stage one’s team time trial was won by Visma-Lease a Bike. There are now 18 more days for teams to make an impact; if we imagine that at least a few of the days in the big mountains are destined for GC riders, and there will be a handful of days which end in bunch sprints, then it doesn’t leave a lot for everyone else.

Spare a thought for the 18 riders who fought hard to make the breakaway on stage three. Given their size, how early it was in the race, and how there were unlikely to be huge gaps at the finish line, they would have all been hoping that they would have some leeway to compete for the stage win. Getting in a break is not something that happens by accident, but after a lot of effort, positioning, and skill, so for it all to be for nothing must have been dispiriting.

UAE did not need to pull them back on Monday; the race was not on the line, there is lots of road to win the yellow jersey on. As soon as Tuesday morning, there was speculation that Pogačar might be looking to give the jersey back away, so they don’t have to control the race for basically three weeks. Therefore, stage three was just a show of strength, a point proven, the Slovenian and his team showing that they can do what they want.

The Tour’s organisers, ASO, probably loved the opening stages, the big names in the distinctive jerseys, a GC battle which, for now, has the illusion of being close, due to there not being incredibly selective climbs. For the casual fan, I suppose it’s nice to see the big names doing it all.

However, I long for some novelty, for not complete domination, for teams not called UAE, or Visma to a lesser extent, to dictate the race, and to allow other story lines to grow. Perhaps this will happen on stage four, and there are still a lot of stages left, I just fear another Tour de Pog. At least wait until the Vosges, please. By the way, I think Pogačar has four more stages in him this year; any advance?

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com.

The UCI has changed its rules on feeding in races due to the extreme heat at the Tour de France.

In a press release on Tuesday morning ahead of stage four, cycling's governing body said that feeding bags or musettes will now be allowed in feed zones initially designated just for bottles.

More bottles will be allowed to be handed out in musettes, essentially, due to the ruling.

Earlier this week, fans were told not to attend the final 44km of stage three due to a wildfire that is raging in the eastern Pyrenees – and the race organisers have not ruled out a stage cancellation or additional amendments to the route.

On Tuesday, stage three's finish in Les Angles was notably empty, and temperatures are expected to reach 37°C in Foix for stage four's finish. The French government has given out permissions to local areas to cancel Tour stages if a Code Red weather alert is raised.

The Tour has given advice to fans on how they can protect themselves in the extreme weather: "Before the riders pass by, during the stage, and after the finish: seek shade as soon as possible, wear a cap or hat, and drink water regularly, even if you don’t feel thirsty."

The UCI press release reads: "The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), in agreement with the President of the Commissaires' Panel, who holds sporting authority over the event, and the organiser, who bears organisational responsibility for its running, has decided to soften the provisions governing rider feeding in light of the extreme heat forecast over the coming stages of the Tour de France.

"In this regard, it has been decided to exceptionally authorise the use of feeding bags in zones initially defined for the provision of bottles only (‘water bottle zones) located within listed climbs. This measure is intended to facilitate the simultaneous distribution of multiple bottles to each rider, so as to ensure optimal hydration in the forecast weather conditions.

"This measure is being implemented on a trial basis and will be reviewed in light of weather conditions, its effectiveness, and its impact on the smooth running of the event."

After romping into the yellow jersey and taking the stage victory with it on day three of the Tour de France at Les Angles, Tadej Pogačar put up the unlikely theory that he might never win again.

While not a mathematical impossibility, the likelihood of that scenario looks vanishingly small, given the form that the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider has shown over the past three days. While rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) may have swiped a popular yellow jersey on stage one, Pogačar was still fastest up the final climb. Yesterday he gifted the stage win to teammate Isaac Del Toro, before finally opting, as if at will, to take one for himself.

Plus ça change.

Pogacar's 'never win again' suggestion was mostly an attempt to fend off the question of whether he was eyeing up Mark Cavendish's 35-stage Tour de France win record – which would require 14 more to beat for the Slovenian.

"That's still quite far away," Pogačar said. "Maybe today was my last victory ever, so I prefer to stay in the moment… enjoy this victory. Every victory feels very special, and if we can have more moments like yesterday, I'll also be grateful.

"So far my career is already beyond my wildest imagination, so yeah, I don't want to think about Mark's record. Just go with the flow and see what we can do in the future, but yeah, if today is my last victory, I'm happy enough."

As if to underline the improbability of his 'last win' postulation, when asked whether he planned to build his form throughout the race, he said there was no form left to build.

"I think maybe this was in the past, like 20 years ago, when they were aiming that the shape will grow to the last week," he said. "But I think now these days you need to come with the best shape possible at the start of the Tour, and you go with it. You try every day to recover as much as possible, eat food like a robot, and just go with the flow with what you bring here."

Last win or not, Pogačar had planned for stage three to be a family affair, with his mother at the finish. However, due to wildfires in the region, a decree issued by the Pyrenees-Orientales department forbade fans from attending the race under threat of prosecution, so she opted to stay away.

"My mum messaged me in the morning, saying, 'Ah, we cannot come to see the stage today, because of the rules," he said.

But not everyone was keen on the restrictions, prosecution or not: "We came to 20km to go, and the top of the climb was full of people, which was, for me, nice," he added. "But yeah, a lot of people decided not to come but still many, many did. Only here in the final, I think, it was a bit less."

With the heat set to soar to 40 degrees plus for Tuesday's fourth stage from Carcassonne to Foix, and continued high heat lasting well into the race, today's ruling may not be the last of the Tour. But as they proved today that won't necessarily deter the fans. And if Pogačar's form remains as hot as the fry-an-egg tarmac of southern France, they're likely to see him win another stage too.

The white minibus is decked out in advertising signs for a window company. There are 16 seats inside, but only one of them is occupied: the driver’s. The bus trundles its way around France every July, bringing up the rear of the Tour de France peloton, repurposed from an otherwise nondescript van into the broomwagon – the vehicle that swoops up the riders who fall too far back and miss the time cut.

Arnaud De Lie of Lotto-Intermarché loitered in front of it throughout Sunday's third stage. More on him later. Arvid de Kleijn of Tudor Pro Cycling was also hanging out just front.

This year's race is meant to be a joyous occasion for De Kleijn. Aged 32, he’s making his Tour debut. It’s also his maiden Grand Tour. A late-bloomer, he didn’t turn pro until 2020 and didn't start winning sprints regularly until 2023. A win at Milano-Torino in 2023 and a stage victory at Paris-Nice in 2024 was an indication that in an increasingly youthful sport, older riders could still emerge. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could win a stage of this July's Tour.

His year so far, however, has been marked by tragedy and sadness – as well as euphoria. In February, his father, Cees, died of cancer. De Kleijn, understandably, took a break from racing. “Towards the end [of my dad’s life] things became very difficult for him and for all of us as a family,” De Kleijn said in May.

A few weeks after his dad’s passing, a group of young adults attacked him while out training and broke his nose. “There was no way to reason with them, so I tried to leave,” he said. “One of them punched me in the face several times… I still don’t understand why it happened.”

At the same time, De Kleijn was welcoming his first child into the world with his partner. “It was beautiful news, of course, but becoming a father while preparing to lose my own dad… that was emotionally overwhelming. I was living between two extremes: joy and heartbreak at the exact same time.”

As the Tour left Spain and headed into France on stage three, the Dutchman struggled in the repressive heat and felt physically hamstrung.

“My body didn’t want to do it today,” he said at the finish. “After the team time trial I’m just blocked. My body doesn’t want to push that much.”

De Kleijn, supported by two Tudor teammates, endured rather than enjoyed the third stage. Every pedal stroke was an effort. He could have given in, abandoned, but the memory of his father was at the forefront of his thoughts.

“I’m completely exhausted but I just told [my teammates] that I was riding with my dad in mind,” he said, hunched over in Les Angles, cold bottles of water being poured over him by his team’s staff.

He had made it, 41 minutes behind stage winner Tadej Pogačar, but crucially seven minutes within the time limit. De Kleijn continued talking about his father: "I saw him suffer so much and I had him in mind. This suffering is nothing compared to what I saw. I just needed to keep on going, keep the pressure on the pedals.”

De Lie did not see the finish.

The 24-year-old Belgian fell ill two days before the race got underway in Barcelona with a stomach infection, and there were doubts if he would even start stage one’s team time trial, after he stepped off his bike during the TTT’s recon. In the end he did, and he finished stage two as well – but in dead last place.

He wouldn’t even be that fortunate on stage three. De Lie was at the back of the stage throughout, the broomwagon in his rearview mirror the whole way, the spectre of going home early casting a long shadow over him. The TV graphics showed how far behind De Lie was – in essence a countdown to his exit.

Yet it was not inevitable, even if it looked that way. “I had the feeling he was getting better,” his Lotto-Intermarché teammate Liam Slock told Cycling Weekly. “On the bus he was actually quite happy. This morning he was confident he was going to make it.”

Two other teammates shared the same opinion. “We decided before the stage that Bauptiste [Veistroffer] would stay with him,” explained Huub Artz. “And if we thought that he was making a strong impression and needed help, I would drop back. But there was the possibility that he would not have the legs.”

De Lie did not have the legs. His condition had regressed and he was in survival mode all day. The stifling heat could have been to blame. “That was one of the hottest days on the bike I’ve ever had,” Slock said. “At the beginning it was always between 38 and 40 degrees until the penultimate climb when it went down a bit.”

Late on, the decision was made that Veistroffer would leave De Lie behind to make sure he made the time cut himself. With just kilometres remaining, De Lie waved the white flag. He hopped into a team car and withdrew from the race. “To protect his health, the Belgian eventually stepped off his bike on the final climb of the day,” his team said.

It was agony and ecstasy in the Pyrenees. De Kleijn, riding in the memory of his father, just about found a way through the suffering. De Lie, however, barely rode a few dozen kilometres in France. The broomwagon has claimed its first victim of the 2026 race.

In a rare, almost unprecedented first at the Tour de France, the bar at the summit of the race’s first mountain finish counted empty seats. Beers in hand, around 20 punters dashed to the edge of the terrace to watch Tadej Pogačar win the stage. Perhaps only a few hundred more had made the hike up to the ski resort, on a day the fans were told to stay at home.

The announcement came less than 24 hours before the stage start. On Sunday evening, Tour organisers ASO urged people not to go to the finish of stage three, due to wildfires tearing through the Pyrénées-Orientales region. The town of Les Angles had prepared to welcome 25,000 people. On its first time hosting the Tour, maybe only a quarter of that number turned up.

“My mum messaged me in the evening yesterday: ‘Ah, we cannot come to see the stage today because of the rules’,” Pogačar said post-race. “Being here on the podium was a little bit sad, just seeing photographers and a few people, not the usual big crowd around the finish area. But if that is what is good for safety, I understand it’s better.”

To discourage people from coming to the roadside, Tour organiser ASO stopped its publicity caravan – a carnival of sponsor-led floats handing out freebies – 44km from the finish line. Fans still lined the course in dribs and drabs, but far from the masses the biggest bike race in the world is used to.

At the crêperie in Les Angles, the chefs had prepared extra batter for the Tour’s arrival. “We were expecting to be full all day, but the fire killed our dreams,” said waiter Éloi, who served a handful of polka-dot-clad customers on the terrace.

“It’s a shame for the businesses who have been waiting for this day for more than a year. I know some that bought many kilos of meat, and not all of it will be sold.”

This was supposed to be Les Angles’s big day. Yellow jersey bunting hung from street lamps all along the town’s parade. Restaurants owners wheeled mobile bars out onto the pavement, but none of them had queues longer than a couple of people. With two hours to go until the peloton came through, the 300 or so sheep in the field by the cable car outnumbered the fans in the street.

Antoine, owner of the restaurant Chez Antoine, was non-plussed by the scarce footfall. He’s used to Les Angles, a town of barely 600 people, having a sleepy feel. For him, it was just another Monday.

“Yes, we were penalised because the prefect decided to intervene and stop people from coming,” Antoine said, “but it doesn’t bother me.”

“All the police and firefighters are dealing with the fires. Can you imagine if a tourist went up the mountain and had a medical emergency? What would they do? I completely understand [the measures].”

By the time the peloton arrived at around 5pm, the town had fleshed out a little. Fans rang cowbells, applauded the riders and shouted their names as normal. TV viewers at home might have seen a route lined with people, but the reality is the crowds were only a single body deep. The circus had come to town, and only a few had managed to get in.

“Of course, I’m sad,” Les Angles’s mayor, Michel Poudade, told Le Parisien. After all, Tour finish towns in France pay upwards of €100,000 for the honour of welcoming the race.

“The decision from the authorities has left us with a strange feeling: why did we go so far to prepare for this? There are businesses with full fridges who are going to lose a lot of money," the mayor continued.

“I’m going to plead the case to the Tour organisers for another Tour finish in Les Angles in the future.”

Perhaps then the town will get the Tour party it planned for.

A penny for Arnaud De Lie's thoughts. The Lotto Intermarché rider was forced out of the Tour de France on stage three due to illness, months after he had quit the Giro d'Italia in similar circumstances.

The 24-year-old battled back to fitness after leaving the Giro early, winning a stage of the Tour de Wallonie last month, but a stomach bug has cut short his time in France.

Stage three was brutal, with De Lie suffering in the heat, coming after he finished last on Sunday's stage two. The pace was high all day, first for the fight to get into the breakaway, and then peloton pulling back that break, led by UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

As Tadej Pogačar of UAE celebrated his stage victory, and going into yellow, De Lie was stepping off the bike.

A press release from the team read: "Having suffered from an abdominal infection in the days leading up to the Grand Départ, and despite making steady progress in his recovery, the demands of today's stage, raced in scorching temperatures approaching 40°C, ultimately proved too much.

"After being dropped, De Lie did everything he could to stay in the race, supported for many kilometres by teammate Baptiste Veistroffer. The three Pyrenean climbs in the final part of the stage, combined with the extreme heat, made the challenge even tougher. To protect his health, the Belgian eventually stepped off his bike on the final climb of the day."

"It's obviously a huge disappointment. I had worked for months to be ready for this Tour de France and I was dreaming of fighting for the sprint finishes," De Lie said. "Unfortunately, this stomach infection weakened me a lot. I gave everything I had over the first two stages, but today I simply didn't have the legs to continue, especially in such extreme heat.

"I hung on in a small group behind Baptiste, but the succession of climbs in the final was just too demanding. I told Baptiste to go on so that he could make it back within the time limit. The only thing I can do now is focus on making a full recovery and come back stronger for the rest of the season."

Tadej Pogačar continued in the yellow jersey after stage seven of the 2026 Tour de France ended in a bunch sprint.

The Slovenian took control of the race on stage six, and was never threatened on Friday, as Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) won in Bordeaux.

Pogačar leads the race by 2:42 over his nearest competitor, Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike. As a result of his exploits in the Pyrenees, Pogačar is also the leader in the King of the Mountains competition, while his teammate Isaac del Toro wears white as best young rider.

Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) added to his points tally at the day's intermediate sprint, to remain in green.

Tour de France stage seven report

Everything you need to know about the 2026 Tour de France

Tour de France 2026 route analysis

Tour de France 2026 start list

Tour de France 2026 team guide

Tour de France 2026 stage seven: Hagetmau > Bordeaux (175.1km)

1. Tim Merlier (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, in 3:44:20
2. Søren Wærenskjold (Nor) Uno-X Mobility
3. Biniam Girmay (Eri) NSN Cycling
4. Max Kanter (Ger) XDS Astana
5. Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech
6. Phil Bauhaus (Ger) Bahrain Victorious
7. Huub Artz (Ned) Lotto Intermarché
8. Dorian Godon (Fra) Netcompany Ineos
9. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek
10. Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) NSN Cycling, all at same time

Tour de France 2026 general classification after stage seven

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 24:56:17
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, +2:42
3. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +3:27
4. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Redu Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +3:30
5. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +3:34
6. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +3:55
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +4:00
8. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +4:21
9. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek,+4:57
10. Mathias Vacek (Cze) Lidl-Trek, +7:10

Tour de France 2026 points classification after stage seven

1. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek, 204pts
2. Biniam Girmay (Eri) NSN Cycling, 145pts
3. Max Kanter (Ger) XDS Astana, 140pts
4. Tim Merlier (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, 134pts
5. Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech, 126pts

Tour de France 2026 mountains classification after stage six

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, 28pts
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, 19pts
3. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, 16pts
4. Alex Baudin (Fra) EF Education-EasyPost, 13pts
5. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, 12pts

Tour de France 2026 youth classification after stage seven

1. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 24:59:44
2. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +7s
3. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +28s
4. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +54s
5. Mathias Vacek (Cze) Lidl-Trek, +3:43

Tour de France 2026 teams classification after stage seven

1. Lidl-Trek, in 74:38:20
2. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +27:01
3. UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +27:08

Tadej Pogačar sprang to victory on stage three of the Tour de France on Monday, taking the yellow jersey in the process.

Launched across the finish line by his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate, and yesterday’s stage winner Isaac del Toro, Pogačar took an impressive win on the ascent to Les Angles, securing a two-second gap over Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) The two GC rivals are now level, but as a result of count back, Pogačar now has the race lead and the maillot jaune.

Richard Carapaz took third place on a day when his EF Education–EasyPost teammate Alex Baudin led a spirited breakaway and took the KOM jersey.

During his post-ride interview, Pogačar was effusively complimentary about Del Toro, who put another massively impressive ride on a tough, long, hot and hilly stage.

"It’s because of him, it’s because of Isaac today, I got some extra power I think in the final," said the Slovenia. "He committed more than 100% in the final climb, all the team actually. In the middle of the stage we decided that it’s possible to go for the stage win, and I’m really happy that we start the Tour like this. An incredible finish today.

"If we can win like we won today, and the team feels super good, then we have to take the opportunity. We tried, we gave it all, and we won.

"To take the yellow jersey is a dream for any cyclist, of any age. For me, I don’t know which time already, but every time I can get it is really special. I don’t know for how long this will last, but we try to enjoy every moment."

On a day when most people expected a breakaway to prevail, it came down instead to a battle between the GC contenders during the final 10km, with very few spectators as the stage finished in France, but in an 'exceptional format', due to soaring heat and the heightened risk of wildfires.

The second-longest stage of this year's Tour had a tough and challenging parkour – not a mountain stage, but relentlessly lumpy, with lots of long climbs and a total of 3940 metres of altitude gain across the day, including an uphill finish.

The first third of the stage was ridden at a frenetic pace, with average speeds of 43km per hour despite the lumpy terrain and temperatures in the mid to late 30 degrees celsius. An early crash on the first climb took down multiple riders and left Bruno Armirail (Visma-Lease-a-bike) with a visibly injured right knee and a broken shoe.

With 125km to go, after one-and-a-half hours of relentless riding, the race seemed to settle and then 19 riders made a move. Of this group, Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) was best placed, with decent position in the GC and a vaguely realistic chance of moving into yellow if he could get the right support from riders around him.

Visma-Lease a Bike appeared almost content to let go of the yellow jersey for a stage and sat back, and UAE Team Emirates-XRG soon capitalised, significantly stepping up the pace and chasing the advance group down. The breakaway failed to establish enough of a gap and it was soon whittled down to six riders, with Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM), Vlad Van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious), George Bennett (NSN Cycling), Raúl García Pierna (Movistar) and Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) hanging in with Baudin.

Baudin mounted an attack during the second-last climb of day – the relatively gentle, but long, ascent of the Col du Calvaire, and fellow Frenchman Nicolas Prodhomme stuck with him. Baudin took the points at the top of the climb, and with it the KOM jersey, and stayed doggedly ahead of the peloton until 11.5km to go, but the UAE-led peloton was always going to reel him in.

This set the scene for an exciting finish, with all the GC contenders in the mix as the pack entered the final kilometre. Having seized control of the race, UAE Team Emirates-XRG were in a commanding position, and Del Toro launched Pogačar into the pole spot with 500 metres to go.

Results

Tour de France stage three: Granollers › Les Angles (195.9km)

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 4:45:11
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, +2s
3. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost
4. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, both at same time
5. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, +4s
6. Lennert Van Eeetvelt (Bel) Lotto Intermarché
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
8. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
9. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG
10. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, all at same time

General classification after stage three

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 8:46:55
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, at same time
3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +23s
4. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +24s
5. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +27s
6. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +48s
7. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +53s
8. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +1:09
9. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, +1:11
10. Ilan Van Wilder (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, +1:17

Visma-Lease a Bike domestique Bruno Armirail looked in pain on stage three of the Tour de France after he was involved in a mass crash with around 182km to go.

The Frenchman appeared to go down first and hit his knee hard as the peloton moved through a small town. While he remounted, he was shown clutching his knee and with a broken shoe.

The crash happened at the front of the peloton, and also took out Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Netcompany-Ineos riders Tobias Foss, Thymen Arensman, and Michał Kwiatkowski. Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM) was affected by the incident too.

Armirail was shown getting treatment from the doctor's car in the aftermath. The crash briefly blocked the road, as the race headed onto the Côte de Saint Feliu de Codines, with gaps opening up in the peloton with most of the day still to come. After almost 10km with a broken shoe, the 32-year-old replaced this.

All the riders involved finished the day, with Armirail finishing 36:30 behind the stage winner, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

More to follow...

A little boy, at most five years old, is sitting on his father’s shoulders next to the media zone in Barcelona. Ten minutes have passed since Isaac del Toro stood on stage in the Tour de France team presentation, dressed in the Mexican champion’s jersey, beneath the spires of the Sagrada Família. The moment is historic: Del Toro is the first man from his country this century to compete at the race. For the little boy, that makes him a hero.

“Torito!” he cries. The sound is piercing. No sooner have the ears of the people nearby recovered that another cry comes, and another, and another. “Torito!” the boy’s voice tires and quivers, as he waves a UAE Team Emirates-XRG cap. “Una firma!” – a signature.

The frenzy at this year’s Tour was supposed to surround France’s 19-year-old debutant Paul Seixas. And it surely will once the race enters France on Monday. But it’s Del Toro, Mexico’s sweetheart, who has had the most admirers across the opening weekend.

Now, not only is he the first Mexican to start the race since Miguel Arroyo in 1997 – and only the third ever along with Raúl Alcalá – he’s also a stage winner. It took him just two days, and came in a swell of affection on Montjuïc in Barcelona.

“It’s a dream come true,” Del Toro said in his post-race press conference. “It’s super special, especially because [the fans] make me feel like it’s a home race. You cannot believe how special it is to see the flags. I’m a very privileged guy.”

Over the hill by the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team bus, Tadej Pogačar waded through 50 or so Mexican fans, who greeted him with a hero’s welcome. "Pogi, hermano, ya eres mexicano," – Pogi, brother, now you are Mexican – they sang. He wrapped his body in a Mexican flag, and danced to the serenade.

The world champion, second on the day, gifted the stage win to Del Toro. But it was the latter who crafted the perfect finale; charging down a descent, Del Toro whipped around Lidl-Trek’s Mattias Skjelmose and blasted up the 500m hill to the line. Fans Nayeli and Rene watched on in matching Mexico hats halfway up.

Impelled by Del Toro fever, the pair flew in specially from Mexico four days ago to support their national champion on his debut. “Yesterday we were at the start of the team time trial for more than five hours with all the Mexicans,” says Nayeli, 36. “We liked cycling before, but Isaac del Toro awoke the passion in us to follow the Tour.”

Like Del Toro, this edition of the race is the pair’s first. It’s also their first time visiting Europe. “We spent €2,500 to get here,” Rene, 39, says. The victory certainly made it worth it. Does he think Del Toro could win the Tour in the future? “Yes, I’m sure of it,” he smiles, “and we’ll be back here to see it.”

Some 100m further up the road, that same view was shared by Adrián, dressed in a Mexico football shirt. He was born in Mexico City, but has called Barcelona home for three years, one of the around 4,500 Mexicans that live in the wider autonomous community of Catalonia.

“My dad was a cycling fan in the era of Arroyo and Alcalá,” the 42-year-old says. “For a while, we didn’t really follow it, but now with Isaac we’re back following it again. As a national champion, he’s inspiring so many people to take the same path.”

An hour later, Del Toro tore along the barrier beside Adrián, and under the flag he had hung from a long plastic tube. It was exactly the scene Adrián had wished for. “This year I think he’s going to win at least one stage,” he had said, a call born more out of optimism than clairvoyance. “I’d love him to win here in Barcelona, but, well, we’ll see… I’m sure he’s going to win the Tour one day.”

That day may now feel a little closer. But for the moment, Del Toro is a lieutenant in Pogačar's mission to win a fifth Tour, a team-mate buoyed by the joy of victory.

Sunday’s stage win, though stamped with his name, was for all the fans that have come to support him: those wearing football shirts with Del Toro on the back, Nayeli, Rene and Adrián on the finishing straight, and the little boy at the team presentation, whose adoration for his hero just grew even stronger.

Sitting in his press conference, Del Toro looked down at his Mexican champion's jersey, and stretched out the material, pulling it towards the journalists. “I’m the only guy in the bunch that, if you see this flag, [you recognise] it’s me,” he said.

“Someone else might feel pressure, but I feel really privileged... This is a gift from the greatest [rider] of all time. I will take this with me for the rest of my life."

When Jonas Vingegaard took the first yellow jersey of the 2026 Tour de France yesterday, he swore he would cherish every moment in it. But on stage two's uphill finish to Montjuic, as Tadej Pogačar and Isaac Del Toro unleashed a double-fronted charge to the line, prising open a small gap to the maillot jaune as they did so, it was hard to wonder if this was it. Was the Dane's tenure in cycling's most revered garment already at an end?

But Vingegaard held the gap to less than a second and, despite the UAE Team Emirates-XRG pair taking a one-two that seemed to delight Pogačar as much as it did his young teammate, the jersey remained the property of Visma-Lease a Bike for another day. With bonus seconds factored in though, Vingegaard's 12 second lead to Pogačar was cut to six.

Speaking after the race, Vingegaard reiterated the pledge he made yesterday – one made in mind of the apparent epiphany that followed his serious crash at Itzulia Basque Country two years ago.

"It ended up being a GC stage, a hard stage, and it's not my favourite kind of climb, so to keep the yellow jersey is something that I'm actually happy with," he said. "So, yeah, I get another day in the jersey, and it's something that I can definitely be happy with.

"As I said yesterday, I'll enjoy every day, because you never know what happens in life – as I said, it's not a given."

When asked whether he expected to be able to follow Pogačar more closely, he defended his performance, saying: "I followed him on the climb, and on the last sprint. It's very anaerobic, and that's not my strength, so, to be honest, I can be happy with how it played out."

Visma-Lease a Bike sports director Marc Reef echoed those particular remarks, insisting that Pogačar outsprinting Vingegaard was not unexpected.

"It was just a sprint from the corner, and everybody was on the limit, I think," he said. "It was just a small gap in the sprint. [Vingegaard] is less explosive than the others are, so yeah, there's not much more than that."

With Pogačar gathering a six-second time bonus courtesy of his second place, he cut his deficit to the Dane to a scant six – a tenuous advantage that was acknowledged by Vingegaard: "It's not a big lead, it's still more or less the same, so I don't think it changes our approach much," he said.

Reef expanded on that "approach", saying there was no plan to hang on too tightly to yellow, at least for the moment.

"It's just getting Jonas through the stages in a good way," he said. "Also, tomorrow it's a finish of 1.5 kilometres where it is also around 7%. I think that is also something where we'll see contenders battle, and we will see if [he keeps it] or not, but that's actually not really the goal. It's just important to stay in contention, and that is something that we did today."

Isaac del Toro made a daring late move in the final kilometre to take the second stage of the 2026 Tour de France on an uphill finish in Barcelona.

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider chased down late-attacker Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), cornering at high speed with 500 metres to go and unleashing his acceleration.

His team-mate Tadej Pogačar attacked from behind and had the beating of yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), but appeared to all his young colleague to take an historic victory in a UAE Team Emirates-XRG 1-2. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) topped an impressive opening weekend by finishing third.

Vingegaard remains in the yellow jersey of race leader, but Pogačar has closed the gap from twelve to six seconds, moving into second overall. Evenepoel now sits third, 15 seconds down.

General Classification contenders Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) and Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) took on minimal losses on the stage, conceding three seconds to Pogačar and Vingegaard.

Del Toro claimed his first Tour de France stage win on his debut, and what's more, took Mexico's first win at the race in 36 years, since Raúl Alcala claimed stage 7 in 1990.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG controlled the finale as the riders took on the famous Côte du Château de Montjuïc three times. American Brandon McNulty took charge of the race, discouraging any rivals from making an early attack.

On the final time up the climb Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) lit up the race with a late move, which was countered first by Richard Carapaz (EF Education First-EasyPost) and then Skjelmose, who moved on the descent into the final rise to the line.

Del Toro pulled on the front of the bunch in pursuit of the Dane before launching his own move. Vingegaard chased the Mexican champion, but looked more interested in Pogačar who swerved to the opposite side of the road, allowing Del Toro to create a gap and make more history for Mexico.

"You cannot believe how it feels now for me, especially for my country. Everything that's going on is just insane, really," an elated Del Toro told the TV interviewer after the finish.

"We were going super fast. We predicted this can happen. In the top of the climb, I was not able to be in the top position, but then I was able to bring back Skjelmose. We made a plan for Tadej and I did it. But at the end, the gap was bigger, so I just went with the flow to the finish line."

Since winning the Tour de l'Avenir in 2023, Del Toro's rise has been rapid. He has become a major star back home in Mexico, winning the Mexican Sportsperson of the Year award in 2025 after coming within a day of claiming the Giro d'Italia.

On the 2026 Tour's second stage, Del Toro ascends to even greater heights.

"These kind of opportunities don't come almost ever," Del Toro added. "I'm super proud to be able to have the level to manage this kind of situation."

Stage 3 of the Tour de France is in doubt, as local officials are set to make a decision on whether wildfires in the region should bring about the cancellation of the stage into Les Angles.

How it Happened

The second state of the 2026 Tour was billed as a one-day Classic within a Grand Tour, with a punchy finish akin to something one might see in the Ardennes.

Several teams were interested in the early breakaway. In the end, three riders broke clear, building up a maximum lead close to four minutes. The three out front were German champion Felix Engelhardt (Jayco-AlUla), Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) and Frank van den Broek (Picnic-PostNL).

The opening 80 kilometres contained little action before the first intermediate sprint of this year’s Tour de France. Out front, Molenaar took the full 25 points, but the real battle was from the peloton, as Biniam Girmay (NSN) out-sprinted Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) in a first showing of his intentions to reclaim the green jersey he won in 2024.

Shortly after came the first categorised climb, the 6km long second category ascent of the Côte de Begues. As the breakaway’s lead melted away, UAE Team Emirates-XRG took control of the bunch through Belgian Classics rider Florian Vermeersch. Molenaar took full points over the top, but the breakaway’s advantage had fallen to under half a minute with Van den Broek dropped.

With 60km to go, Pogačar’s chief lieutenant Isaac del Toro was off the back of the bunch due to a mechanical issue. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider had to wait for some time by the side of the road and was two-and-a-half minutes in arrears, forcing the Mexican champion into a ferocious chase. The long train of team cars helped Del Toro to put out the potential fire, allowing him to return to the bunch without issues.

There was bad luck for Paul Seixas too, as the Decathlon-CMA CGM rider had a puncture as the peloton hit the final circuit. He, too, was able to come back to the group before the three laps of the Montjuic circuit. Just ahead of the laps, Engelhardt and Molenaar were caught.

On the first ascent of the Montjuic, UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike moved to the front, with Brandon McNulty leading the way with reigning champion Pogačar on his wheel and Vingegaard and Evenepoel behind. The peloton was stretched out over the top, with dozens of riders ripped off the back with two more laps of the climb still to go.

Things settled ahead of the penultimate climb, and groups of riders managed to reattach themselves. McNulty took charge once more as the favourites crowded around the American’s rear wheel. The rider making his first Tour appearance since 2022 was metronomic, not requiring any collaboration as he towed the 40-strong group into the final five kilometres.

As the final time up the Montjuic began, Decathlon’s Tiesj Benoot took up the pace in support of Seixas. Pogačar moved onto his wheel, supported by Adam Yates as the favourites waited for their moment and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) was dropped.

Around 20 riders approached the top with the Yates-led front group as Johannesen made the first attack with Carapaz going over the top of him. It was all neutralised, however, as Pogačar followed every move. Skjelmose was the next to go with just under 2km left, chased by Del Toro with the group behind him ahead of the final climb to the finish.

Del Toro rounded Skjelmose with 500 metres to go with Vingegaard and Pogačar just behind. The yellow jersey initially pursued the Mexican before switching to Pogačar's wheel, who allowed Del Toro to create a gap large enough to claim a famous victory.

Results

Tour de France stage two: Taragonna > Barcelona, 182km

1. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG in 03:40:01
2. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG
3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
4. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, all same time
5. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek
6. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility
7. Romain Grégoire (Fra) Groupama-FDJ United
8. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious
9. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon-CMA CGM
10. Tom Pidcock (GBr) Pinarello-Q36.5, all +3 seconds

General Classification after stage two

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike in 04:01:48
2. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +6s
3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +15s
4. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +16s
5. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +19s
6. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon-CMA CGM, +42s
7. Romain Grégoire (Fra) Groupama-FDJ United, +44s
8. Florian Lipowitz (Ger) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +45s
9. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +53s
10. Tom Pidcock (GBr) Pinarello-Q36.5, +1:00

With extreme temperatures gripping the south of France, the third stage of the 2026 Tour de France is in danger of cancellation due to wildfires ripping through the Easter Pyrenees region.

Speaking to AFP on Sunday, Pierre Regnault de la Mothe, a senior official within the Pyrénées-Orientales department in which the third stage is set to finish, said that a decision will be taken by the end of the day concerning the running of stage 3.

Forest fires are currently raging around 70 kilometres from the stage 3 finish in Les Angles. Approximately 1,500 hectares have been affected and 700 firefighters mobilised to tackle the blaze. Several roads around the route of stage 3 are also closed.

"The fire has flared up again. All resources are being mobilised to contain it," added Regnault de la Mothe.

Stage 3 is scheduled to begin in Granollers taking riders over the Pyrenees mountain range on a 196km stage to Les Angles.

With the heat already impacting on the race during the opening team time trial, riders were seen taking measures to control their core body temperature as the race began in Barcelona.

Temperatures in the region are set to top 40 degrees celsius on Monday, and with the region experiencing extreme heat throughout May and June, race organisers have been conscious of possible changes in line with the UCI's extreme weather protocols.

The organisers have been on standby to adjust the route day-by-day depending on how things unfold.

According to a French Interior Ministry document viewed by Reuters, regional officials will hold sway over the cancellation of stages in the coming weeks.

The document stated: "In exceptional circumstances, and in consultation with ​the organiser and all relevant parties, you may ​decide to cancel a stage if health or ⁠operational conditions no longer allow for the simultaneous safeguarding ​of spectators and staff, and the continued provision of emergency ​services to the public.”

As the temperatures rose into the mid-30s in Barcelona for the stage one team time trial of the 2026 Tour de France, it was imperative for riders to keep their body temperatures down in order the put in the optimum performance.

Body heat management looks set to be a running theme during this edition of the Tour de France, with temperatures set to rise above 40 degrees in the coming days.

Teams utilised a multitude of methods as Jonas Vingegaard led Visma-Lease Bike to victory, but one of the more common has been targeted by the UCI in a clamp-down on teams seeking to gain an extra aerodynamic advantage.

It has become customary to see riders stuff ice socks down the back of their necks during time trials and road stages. A pair of tights is filled with ice cubes and tied together, providing a long period of protection against the heat as the ice melts and soaks into the riders’ clothing.

Several teams were asked to remove their ice socks ahead of rolling down the start ramp in Barcelona on the opening day of the race.

"It changes the morphology of the riders' shape," a UCI commissaire told Cyclingnews, moments after Visma-Lease a Bike were instructed to remove their ice socks.

Article 1.3.032 of the UCI's technical regulations says that ‘clothing and other items or accessories worn by a rider (including but not limited to helmets, glasses, shoes or in-race communication devices) may not modify the morphology of the rider’.

The enforcement of this rule was explained during team equipment meetings ahead of the Tour.

While riders were unable to wear ice socks during the TTT on stage one, the rule does not appear to be in place for the Tour’s road stages, with riders spotted using the cooling device during the second stage between Tarragona and Barcelona.

Keeping the body's core temperature down has become a new frontier of innovation over the last few seasons, with more research being put forward supporting its importance for elite performance.

Ice vests are now used by almost every team before racing and riders are regularly seen pouring a full bottle of water over their heads on multiple occasions throughout a warm stage. The Alpecin-Premier Tech riders were given homemade ice pops as they sat in the waiting area before making their opening team time trial.

Before stage one, Netcompany-Ineos riders were spotted with both forearms in a plastic box of cool water as they prepared to begin their team time trial; on their way to finishing narrowly in second place behind Visma-Lease a Bike.

Speaking to gathered media after the stage, Director of Racing Geraint Thomas confirmed that it was the first time the team had used this method during competition.

“Just a bit of a pre-cooling strategy really to keep the core temperature down,” Thomas explained. “It's obviously hot with the warm-up and everything, it was just to try to keep cool, before starting.”

“[It was the] first time in a race here, but we did it on the track previously and also they did it at the circuit on Wednesday when they had a training session there,” Thomas added.

Temperatures are expected to soar during this year’s Tour de France, and race organisers are bracing for possible disruptions in keeping with the UCI’s extreme weather protocols, which could see stages modified or cancelled altogether.

There are fears in parts of the south of France that wildfires could break out due to the searing conditions not only expected for the rest of July, but also experienced in the weeks prior to the race.

"It is a major concern for us," A.S.O route designer Thierry Gouvenou told HLN before the start of the race. "We have had heatwaves before in the past, but the situation is much worse now because the soil is already bone-dry due to the extreme temperatures in May and June."

The organisers are said to be on standby to adjust the route day-by-day depending on how things unfold.

According to a French Interior Ministry document viewed by Reuters, regional officials will also hold sway over the cancellation of stages in the coming weeks, with temperatures estimated to hit as high as 44 degrees celsius.

The document stated: "In exceptional circumstances, and in consultation with ​the organiser and all relevant parties, you may ​decide to cancel a stage if health or ⁠operational conditions no longer allow for the simultaneous safeguarding ​of spectators and staff, and the continued provision of emergency ​services to the public.”

The 2026 Tour de France has started in Barcelona with a team time trial for the first time since 1971. Team Visma-Lease a Bike won and put Jonas Vingegaard into the yellow race leader's jersey, following on from Eddy Merckx's Molteni 55 years ago.

Team time trials (TTTs) have infrequently featured in La Grande Boucle lately – coincidentally, Visma-Lease a Bike won the last one in Brussels (yet another Grand Depart on foreign soil) on Stage 2 of the 2019 race. This year's TTT was raced under new, arguably more dynamic, rules. Previously, the fourth rider to cross the line gave the whole team their time. Now individual riders get their own times, with the first finisher's time counting for the team.

The change has spiced up what can be a formulaic discipline – ride strongly and steadily to keep as many riders together as possible. In TTTs raced in this format earlier in the season at Paris-Nice and Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, teams dropped more riders earlier and gave their GC favourite or strongest climber a lead-out to the finish. This is exactly what happened up the final climb on Saturday.

In terms of tech, the new rules have exacerbated the extent to which riders optimise their equipment for their role. At the team buses before the start, we saw bikes belonging to riders whose job it is to pull on the flatter, earlier parts of the course fitted with bigger chainrings, while their lighter teammates, expected to break away on the climbs, focused more on weight reduction and slightly easier gearing.

In addition to that trend, in our Tour de France Grand Depart tech gallery below, we noticed a move towards narrower tyres, 3D-printed accessories, bling titanium parts, more stem spacers, and chain retention devices. We photographed World and Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel's prototype Specialized S-Works Shiv TT and defending Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar's Colnago TT2.

Ahead of Sunday's first road stage, a hilly 168.5km route between Tarragona and Barcelona, we also featured interesting road bikes, including those ridden by the overall contenders, such as young French star Paul Seixas, who is expected to do battle on the double ascent of Montjuïc. Scroll down to cast your eyes over photos of Seixas' prototype Van Rysel all-rounder, Pogačar's Y1Rs road bike and Evenepoel's S-Works Tarmac SL9. There are also unreleased helmets, custom bikes, and nifty mechanics' hacks.

We've already published an article dedicated to the ins and outs of Tadej Pogačar's Colnago TT2 time trial bike, which the Italian brand says can meet the 6.8kg UCI weight limit. So we'll just run through the talking points here.

Most interestingly, his Enve SES Pro wheels (100mm-deep front and a disc at the back) are wrapped in 700x25c Continental GP5000 TT TR tyres. By today's standards, these are pretty narrow even in a time trial. Given the Colnago TT2 has clearance for 30mm tyres, this must be a deliberate ploy either to reduce weight or drag, or both.

The four-time Tour de France champion pushed an enornmous 64T Carbon-Ti single chainring. Nothwithstanding its narrow-wide profile which improves chain retention, Pogačar also used a K-Edge chain catcher. He was one of the most notable adopters of short cranks and stuck with the 160mm size for the TTT, where a low aero position and open hip angle are high priority.

Here is Jonas Vingegaard's Cervélo P5, a double Tour de France winner and Pogačar's main rival for the general classification.

There's no paint to be seen here. The Dane's time-trial machine is stripped back to bare carbon, which is probably covered with a clear coat for protection. Going paintless can save a decent amount of weight (in the region of 100-200g), but it's an advantage reserved for team leaders. Vingegaard's teammates rode painted frames.

His base bar looks very low. It's already slammed flush with the head tube, then dips below it. This was potentially to give him a more aggressive position when riding solo on the last climb.

Because the UCI's saddle setback rule still applies to TT bikes, Vingegaard's Prologo TGale TT saddle sits far back in the rails to keep the nose at least 5cm behind the bottom bracket.

Like his Slovenian nemesis, Vingegaard has a deep-section front wheel, a Reserve 77, and disc rear wheel, a Reserve Infinity Disc. But his 700x30c Vittoria Corsa Pro Speed tyres are much wider.

This is the Van Rysel XCR TT of Paul Seixas' Decathlon CMA CGM teammate Olaaj Kooij.

Developed in conjunction with Swiss Side, whose Hadron wheels it rolls on, the XCR is a beefy-looking TT bike on account of its deep tubing.

At the end of his base bar, the Dutch sprinter has custom 3D-printed Leap brake levers and blip holders. We're seeing more of these on SRAM-equipped bikes as riders seek a more elegant and secure way to attach blips, which enable you to change gear from anywhere on the bike.

Unlike Shimano, SRAM makes its own 1x chainrings. Kooij ran a 64T single aero ring, which seemed a popular size on the day.

The Decathlon CMA CGM team wore as-yet-unreleased Van Rysel time-trial helmets. We don't know much about these for now, but they do have a seamlessly integrated and slightly concave visor, rounded top, and a tail that looks to nestle into the gap between the rider's neck and shoulders.

The Specialized Shiv was raced in the time trial by Soudal-Quickstep and Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe. This is the rig of Jan Tratnik, who rides for the second, German team.

The Shiv is one of the lighest time-trial bikes in the WorldTour, as its relatively skinny tubes, especially at the back, suggest.

That said, the prototype Shiv Remco Evenepoel rode looks to have turned that on its head. The rear end is significantly chunkier and appears to incorporate a version of the 'Win Fin' that Specialized introduced to the new Tarmac SL9. Continue scrolling to see our photos of this bike.

We've also gone into depth on Tom Pidcock's Bolide FF time-trial bike, which is also raced by his former team, Netcompany-Ineos. The Bolide F has a distinctive wavy, deep fork and ribbed pattern along the front of the seatpost and seat tube. Both are claimed to reduce drag.

Mauro Schmid's Giant Trinity Advanced SL is a good-looking bike in the Jayco-AlUla team colourway. The latest version of the bike, and the first to have disc brakes, came out in January 2025. The Cadex Aero four-spoke front wheel is one of the more eye-catching designs on the market.

Cannondale also updated its SuperSlice time-trial bike in 2025, claiming a thinner head tube and deeper tubing elsewhere made it 10 watts faster than before. This is EF Education-EasyPost rider Max Walker's Lab71 bike, which is blacked out, probably to save weight.

These look like the Leap blip covers we've seen on other SRAM bikes, but here they are unbranded.

At the end of his extensions, Walker has more Leap TT mounts for his blips. The textured tape could be there for grip or to cover up the branding.

Despite the new SuperSlice having room for 32mm-wide tyres, Walker is running 700x28c Vittoria Corsa Pro Speeds. The pink Muc-Off tubeless valves are a nice match for the team's kit.

Walker and his teammates wore this new POC time-trial helmet. Because it's not officially released, there's not much we can say other than it looks sculpted and light – similar to the Giro Aerohead MIPS II. Its profile is more bullet-shaped than the Van Rysel lid above. The low peak seems like it would meet the shallow visor quite far down the rider's forehead.

Tim Wellens' Enve TT extensions are labelled left and right, presumably for Team UAE Emirates-XRG mechanics' benefit, not his. The white stains on the pads look like salt deposits from sweaty training sessions.

This is the unreleased Specialized S-Works Shiv Remco Evenepoel raced in the time trial. It is very different from the current version his teammates rode (see below). The head tube tapers dramatically, while the fork legs splay wider.

Now look to the back of the bike where material extends from the back of the seat tube to hug the rear wheel. One of the world's best time trialists has a typically whopping 68T chainring.

For context, this is the current generation of the Shiv with shallower, svelter tubes.

While 'warming up', riders are trying to prime their aerobic system for an intense effort, not to raise their core body temperature, which negatively impacts performance. Here, EF's Ben Healy is riding a Wahoo Kickr V6 smart trainer and getting blasted by the brand's Headwind fan. This may well be controlled by a Core body temperature sensor the former yellow jersey wearer has attached to his heart-rate monitor strap.

Prototype Shimano Dura-Ace rims, hubs (as seen here on Alpecin-Premier Tech's Canyon Aeroad CFR) and pedals have been regularly spotted at races this year. This means an official release is imminent because UCI rules mandate that products become commercially available within a year of their first race.

There are rumours of a new Canyon Speedmax CFR, but Mathieu van der Poel looked to be on the current bike.

Tudor Pro Cycling raced the recently updated BMC Timemachine TT bike, with strikingly wide and deep fork legs and seat stays.

The Trek Speed Concept SLR TT bikes we saw on top of a Lidl-Trek team car had a mixture of Bontrager (Trek's in-house component brand) and Princeton Carbon Works wheels. Since these were probably spare bikes, this could have been down to availability, the needs of specific riders, or other reasons we're not aware of.

Last year's third-place finisher overall, Florian Lipowitz, is the co-leader of Red Bull alongside Remco. His Tarmac SL9 has what looks to be about 25mm of spacers. We're seeing fewer slammed stems in the WorldTour as riders favour comfort and a sustainable aero hoods position over getting low at all costs.

The sunlight shows off the raw carbon on Tadej Pogačar's Colnago Y1Rs. Last year, he raced this aero bike exclusively over Colnago's V5Rs climbing bike because it is probably faster, despite being a little heavier. As usual, his Y1RS is kitted out with boutique, lightweight parts.

Using 3D-printing to perfectly integrate accessories with the bike seems to have really caught on at this year's race. It might only deliver a marginal aero gain, but that's enough for this level of racing. When this mount is holding a Wahoo Elemnt Roam or Bolt, there'll be no space between the gullwing handlebar and the computer.

On what looks to be Pogačar's spare bike, he has a 3D-printed titanium computer mount. Whether this brings any performance advantage or not, it looks very cool.

Pogačar's super domestique Isaac del Toro, who has a decent chance of finishing on the GC podium himself, has a healthy spacer stack.

In a neat touch, the seat post cover doubles as a number holder, saving a couple of grams. This also looks to be 3D-printed.

Another raw carbon bike. This time among Jayco-ALUla's fleet of Giant Propel Advanced SLs. The weight reduction from the lack of paint must bring Giant's updated aero bike very close to the UCI weight limit. It's already so light that Jayco-ALUla have no need for the TCR on climbing days.

It belongs to Aussie puncheur Michael Matthews, who will look to benefit from the weight saving on uphill finishes.

This finish would sell like hot cakes if Giant made it publically available.

The fantastic-looking paint on Felix Engelhardt's Propel celebrates his German national title win. He, too, has several spacers under the stem of what is a very low bike.

This fabric sheet holds his race transponder. It looks ungainly compared to sleeker attachment methods other teams use.

Even a shorter rider like Tom Pidcock doesn't slam the stem on his Pinarello Dogma F.

A Leap computer mount holds the Garmin Edge 840 right against the Most Talon Ultra Fast one-piece cockpit. That screen needs a clean though.

Tour de France stage winner Kasper Asgreen can always be relied upon for an aggressive set-up. Check out the saddle-to-bar drop on his Cannondale SuperSix Evo Lab71. That's a new bike for EF this year after Cannondale dropped the stack and slimmed down most tubes to save a handful of watts over the outgoing model.

The 2021 Tour of Flanders winner has a fabric sleeve and a paint chip on his fork.

Lab71 denotes Cannondale's highest tier of carbon - dubbed Series 0 - with the best stiffness-to-weight ratio. The pencil-thin SuperSix seat tube is designed to disperse dirty air coming off the rider's legs.

If you put your spectacles on, you'll notice the Tipp-Ex markings on Asgreen's saddle rails, which help mechanics set it up the way he likes. This seems to be as far forward as possible to promote a more powerful and aerodynamic position. He's on a 3D-printed Fizik Vento Argo saddle.

The blips on the drops will enable the breakaway specialist to change gear while sprinting out of a reduced bunch.

That's all from the Grand Depart for now. We'll be searching for more tech over the coming days, so stay tuned for additional news, bike checks and trends.

While the Red Bull–Bora–hansgrohe mechanics tried their best to keep it under wraps, the camouflaged Specialized S-Works Shiv TT bike of World Champion Remco Evenepoel has garnered a fair bit of attention at the Tour de France Grand Depart.

In the automotive industry, striped camouflaging is used to hide the shape and detail of a new test mule, but the downside is a vivid and easy-to-spot object - no riding incognito here. The same can be said for Specialized and what is clearly an all-new S-Works Shiv TT bike, a fact validated by the UCI prototype sticker on the upper seat tube.

Originally launched in 2019 at the Tour de France Grand Depart, the Specialized S-Works Shiv TT has long needed an update - despite still being competitive and winning races, Olympic gold medals and World Championships under the legs of Belgian Remco Evenepoel. Known for its lightweight chassis and sleek aerodynamic design, the Morgan Hill-based company has looked to up the ante of its best time-trial bike and bestow it with a more contemporary design.

Like the newly launched Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL9, the new Shiv will undoubtedly benefit from a fresh Fact 12r layup, entirely new tube shaping, and balanced weight distribution throughout the chassis. In terms of the new blueprint, the bike benefits from a radically narrower leading edge on the headtube, which is also deeper in profile than the current model.

The fork, downtube and seat tube are also notably deeper and sharper, and more in line with current aero trends, while a distinct Win Fin-style seat tube cutout extends over and hugs the rear wheel.

The rear triangle, in particular, is akin to an arrowhead: the seat stays join the seat tube at 90 degrees, mirroring the chainstay below, and then meet at the dropouts. We expect this to have been implemented for a boost in aerodynamics, compliance, and tyre clearance (presumably up to 32mm) - and one that visually sets it apart from its chief rivals. Like his teammates, Evenepoel's prototype Shiv was running 30mm Specialized Turbo TLR tyres.

Closer examination of Evenepoel’s spare bike on the roof of his team car showed a SRAM Red AXS groupset complete with a whopping 68T chainring paired with a 10-36T cassette and 160mm cranks. There’s also a new aerodynamic seatpost clamp allowing saddle tilt and fore-aft adjustments.

The cockpit is fairly similar affair to what we’ve seen used by Remco in the past, with a vee-shaped basebar attached to custom carbon-fibre extensions. As has become commonplace on SRAM-sponsored teams at this year's Tour de France, Remco is using custom Leap Components Aero Grip Blip Mount shifters emblazoned with his initials, R.EV.

While the Roval solid disc rear appears unchanged, the front Roval wheel is notably deeper than that of his teammates, all of whom are riding the current Specialized S-Works Shiv TT.

We'll update this with more information and details as we receive them.

One thousand and seventy seven days. That's how much time has passed since Jonas Vingegaard last wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. But when he finally tried it on for size again in Barcelona on Saturday evening, after leading Visma-Lease a Bike to victory in the stage one team time trial, he found it still fitted him just fine.

Vingegaard stormed through the finish with eight seconds in hand over second-placed Filippo Ganna of Netcompany-Ineos, after his team pulled off a near-flawless TTT masterclass. Above all, though, he triumphed over Tadej Pogačar, his Tour de France nemesis and the defending champion that many consider near-unbeatable.

Vingegaard has worn yellow before – he is a double Tour winner, don't forget – but it was clear that this jersey meant as much to him as it has ever done, and maybe more.

Describing it as a "dream come true", he said: "Being back in the yellow jersey is for me the most important. I'm just extremely happy, it's something I dreamt of for the last three years.

"It's a dream for everyone in cycling, I think, and just to be wearing this jersey is something special, and I will enjoy every moment in it."

Much has happened in Vingegaard's career during those 1,077 days since he last wore it in Paris at the end of the 2023 Tour de France. Perhaps most significantly, a massive crash at Itzulia Basque Country in early 2024, which left him badly injured and, in the immediate aftermath, believing he might die. Being able to wear the maillot jaune once again, he said, provided a certain level of closure.

"I've struggled at times in the last few years," he told journalists, "[but] now I feel like I can close this chapter in the book, if you can say it. Of course, it will always be a part of my book, laying there on the ground, believing that I'm going to die. And then coming from that to this point is also for me a bit emotional."

Much as wearing yellow once more was a huge moment for Vingegaard, it wasn't won in a straight fight between himself and Pogačar. Both riders were beholden to their team's abilities against the clock, and while Pogačar's UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad were 13 seconds behind come the third and final time check, when both riders were unleashed up the final climb of Montjuïc, it was the Slovenian who prevailed. He was three seconds quicker than Vingegaard's 1:26 and hence will wear the polka dots on stage two.

Vingegaard was acutely aware, he said, that his stage one victory was only the very beginning of a long three weeks. He is now a expecting a hard fight that will begin almost straight away.

"I think the next stage will already be very hard," he said. "I think it's just gonna be, from now on, fighting every single day to do the best possible, to be honest."

Visma-Lease a Bike sports director Marc Reef emphasised that the team's underlying goal was yellow in Paris, and that Vingegaard would not necessarily attempt to keep it in the immediate future.

"[Paris] is the goal; it's not the goal to directly keep it, but of course when the chance is there it's OK," he said. "And of course tomorrow we have immediately another explosive stage; stage three is another explosive stage with an uphill finish… We'll see day by day – we're happy with the situation we're in. We have a small gap over our opponents but in the first place we're happy with this win."

Second on the stage, Egan Bernal in the green jersey, and still there was a feeling that Netcompany-Ineos had started the Tour de France with a dash of bad luck.

In the race’s opening team time trial in Barcelona, Filippo Ganna steered the team to within eight seconds of the stage win, and the race’s first yellow jersey, won instead by Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike.

It seemed like a plan almost perfectly executed. Except Ganna was never meant to lead the charge to the line, Netcompany-Ineos director of racing Geraint Thomas said. It was supposed to be Kévin Vauquelin, who punctured with 7km remaining of the 19.6km course, and finished a minute back.

“It was a tough one, really, with Kévin puncturing,” Thomas told Cycling Weekly. “He was our guy to finish it off. He was the one that was going to, well, he was sitting on to sort of save the legs really for that last effort.”

Due to the new timing system, whereby riders received individual times across the line for the general classification, a stage win would have put the Frenchman in the yellow jersey.

That dream quickly fell away, but in the face of potential disaster, the team improvised, and Ganna took on the baton himself.

“Everyone stepped up and did their bit,” Thomas said. “The way the boys responded to [the puncture] and adapted to the plan was really good to see. Pippo, fair play to him, we wanted him to empty the tank by the top of the first climb and he had to finish it off [on the second].

“As I said earlier today, you have your plan and it'll never go to plan. It's how you adapt to it. It's just a shame to lose Kévin with that puncture. I feel for him, because he hasn't had much luck this year, but it's the way it is, and I think everyone did what they could in the moment.”

Netcompany-Ineos have two riders in the top 10 after stage one: Ganna in second at eight seconds, and Tobias Foss in ninth at 38.

Vauquelin, who placed seventh overall last year with Arkéa-B&B Hotels, is 26th, one minute and 14 seconds behind the leader Vingegaard.

Thomas assured the Frenchman's time loss is not a catastrophe: “[Vauquelin] was coming here to not worry about the GC and just go after the stages,” he said, adding that the team plans to treat the race like “21 one-day races”.

As a final, unexpected treat after the stage, Egan Bernal was called to the podium, where he was presented with the green jersey, as leader of the points classification. The 2019 race winner earned the honour by being the fastest to the first time check 5km into the stage.

Asked by Cycling Weekly if it was the plan to go for green, Bernal said: “No, for sure not. The objective was to ride as fast as we can for the stage.”

Like Thomas, the Colombian's take on the day struck a bittersweet tone. “I think it was good. We came second,” he said. “Of course, you always want to win, but this is cycling, we’re in the highest level in the world, and I think the others deserve the victory.”