It’s stage four of the Tour de France and most teams are already hunting for scraps – I long for a more open race
Three days of racing, three wins for the big GC teams. Is this how everything has to be now?
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.
News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.
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?
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