It's another year of a strong presence for Australian riders at the Tour de France in 2026, with eleven riders expected to line up for the nation and a number among them having already shown what it takes to stand on the top step of the stage podium at a Grand Tour.

While once upon a time the pure sprinters like Robbie McEwen, Stuart O'Grady and Caleb Ewan delivered the biggest haul of stage wins for the nation, that has changed in recent years. Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech) won a stage last year, but even that was in a breakaway, rather than his usual bunch sprint success. Particularly with no Groves on the start line in 2026, this time the attention will fall to the puncheurs and climbers to deliver the best odds for stage glory.

Riders like Jayco AlUla's Ben O'Connor, who already has two wins at the race, and four-time victor Michael Matthews are two key prospects that will deliver optimism that the nation could have a reason to celebrate this July. Then there are others like 2022 Giro d'Italia victor Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who have plenty of proven winning prowess, but will be devoting their efforts to team goals instead.

From the debuting riders to the experienced hands, the winning prospects to the workhorses, we take a look at the eleven riders from Australia that will provide plenty of extra incentive for middle of the night viewing down under once the race sets off from Barcelona on Saturday for the 2026 Tour de France.

Luke Durbridge (Jayco AlUla)

• Riding his 12th and final edition

This is the last Tour de France for the retiring Luke Durbridge, with his power and experience bound to be much missed by the Australian team in future editions. A crucial part of what the team describes as the 'engine room' for a squad that is chasing stage victories and – perhaps not surprisingly given its origin – just about half fills this list of Australian riders with its squad.

Durbridge will be the road captain for what is bound to be an aggressive edition for the team where they have options to cover the gamut of stages on offer. His core role will be clearly evident right from the start as well, with the team bound to be hoping for a strong start with the team time trial on stage 1 and Durbridge will be a crucial part of driving that.

Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla)

• 9th edition, four stage wins, points classification winner in 2017

It has undoubtedly been a tough patch for Michael Matthews, with the rider missing last year's Tour de France after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Then, just as things looked to be falling into place this season, with a win at Gran Premio Castellón among the early results there was a crash in training and with fractures in both arms his season was once again facing a big interruption. The 35-year-old then returned at Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and also raced the Tour de Suisse and, with a solid run including an eighth in Switzerland, now looks to be building form in pursuit of that fifth stage win at the Tour de France.

The last celebration at the race was on stage 14, in 2022 when Matthews took a solo win, with the 2017 green jersey winner confirming his transformation into a well-rounded stage hunter as he held on to break companion Alberto Bettiol with determined grit on the steep ascents to the Mende Aerodrome and then sprinted away as the road flattened. Matthews is a rider who has ridden the lows of the rollercoaster before and held on determinedly so he can ride the highs, so there is no doubt he'll be fighting for the ultimate peak and that is another victory at the Tour de France.

Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla)

• Fifth edition, two stage wins, fourth overall in 2021

When Ben O'Connor debuted at the Tour de France in 2021 he set a high bar, finishing fourth overall, but the pursuit of another top overall result hasn't been an easy road. The Giro d'Italia was the general classification goal this year so proven force O'Connor, along with Matthews, will be a key in Jayco-AlUla's pursuit of stages in France.

Back at the 2021 edition he won stage 9 to Tignes solo, which vaulted him up the rankings, and then in 2025 when his overall hopes were derailed the refocus saw him clinch the win on stage 18 at the top of Col de la Loze. In fact, that was his last win and while his form at the Giro may not have been what he was hoping for, now entering the French Grand Tour without the pressure of it being a key target for GC, he will be freer than ever to conserve the energy on the days that don't suit so on those that do he can chase the stage victories.

Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling)

• Third edition, third on a stage in 2025

It may be some time since Michael Storer broke through with his first two Grand Tour wins in 2021 at the Vuelta a España and, while the six Grand Tours he has ridden since haven't yielded another, his ability to consistently deliver top-10 and even top-five results makes him another of the nation's riders that has the potential to deliver a stage in 2026. In fact he stood on the podium in 2025 on stage 6, taking third from the break.

His Tudor Pro Cycling team is clear that in their second participation at the race stage victories will once again be at the top of their agenda so expect to see the Australian climber active in the breaks once again. Given the Giro results, where Storer was in the top 10 across five climbing stages and finished seventh overall, there can be no doubt about his ability to make the climbs count should he go out front with a group.

Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

• Third edition, won a stage and wore yellow in 2023

The 2022 Giro d'Italia winner, who also came third at that race this year and won a Tour de France stage in 2023, has a clear role at the race this year. He may be a Grand Tour winner in his own right but the team has had a clear target on the event for Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz. With two third places overall between them at the Tour de France the last two years the aim is to deliver a team and leadership duo that, as a combined force, can chase the higher steps.

Given the focus on team strength to try and tackle the two clear-cut favourites of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, Jai HIndley is an important link. Displaying building form through his own dual leadership effort with Giulio Pellizzari, the Australian should be powerful on the climbing stages. However, unless something goes seriously awry, don't expect to see him use that prowess to chase his own results. Hindley will be all in for a team result, not his own.

Damien Howson (Pinarello-Q36.5)

• Third edition

It may be eight years since Damien Howson last rode the Tour de France but there have been plenty of other Grand Tours since so the 33-year-old will be stepping with a solid bank of experience to lean on and share. For his thirteenth Grand Tour, Howson will be lining up with Pinarello-Q36.5 led by Tom Pidcock that is racing the Tour de France for the first time and trying to make the most of the opportunity. Howson will likely slot into a valuable support role as riders like Pidcock lead the charge in pursuit of stage victories.

Chris Harper (Pinarello-Q36.5)

• Third edition

The last times Chris Harper lined up at the Tour de France in 2023 and 2024 at Jayco AlUla, he was a key domestique for Simon Yates, so the chance for him to go for his own opportunities were more limited. However, he proved at the 2025 Giro d'Italia that he is a rider that can deliver at the three-week races when the opportunity presents itself, turning an illness-derailed GC bid into a stage win on the penultimate day of racing. While this time it's clear that the team is lining up chasing stages, the question is will Harper get his chances or will the focus be on supporting Tom Pidcock in pursuit of victories. Either way, the rider – who most recently supported Pidcock as he won the Andorra MoraBanc Clàssica and also took fourth himself – will be a valuable asset for the team.

Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla)

• Second edition

It was Luke Plapp's second Giro d'Italia when he claimed his first Grand Tour stage victory and that is of course a pattern he'd like to carry through to the Tour de France. It was a solo attack from the break on where the 25-year-old took that win in Italy, and his climbing and time trial ability make the ascent-heavy days a good target to deliver another in France. Plus, with an aggressive stage victory focussed approach for the team, Plapp is likely to have the chance to chase those opportunities.

Then there is also his power in the race against the clock, with the rider who has thrice taken the Australian title in the discipline last year delivering fifth and ninth in the time trials at the race. This year there is only one individual test, stage 1 delivering a team time trial, so the 26.1km effort on stage 16 will be the focal point.

As far as form goes, Plapp did leave the Tour Auvergne Rhône-Alpes with a fever, not starting stage 8 with the focus on recovering ready for the Grand Tour ahead. Presuming he now has, the signs have been good on the lead-in, with a third overall at the Tour de Hongrie, fifth at Tour de Romandie and a strong third earlier in the season at the UAE Tour, after taking second to Isaac del Toro on Jebel Hafeet.

Robert Stannard (Bahrain Victorious)

• Second edition

For a second year in a row Robert Stannard will be lining up for the Tour de France. The key aim for his Bahrain Victorious squad is stage victories with riders like three-time Tour stage winner Matej Mohorič on the squad along with Lenny Martinez who will be looking to the mountains jersey, and there is also Antonio Tiberi to chase the general classification. That means Robert Stannard will have his hands full, as he often does, in a support role. It will also be his second Grand Tour of the season, the 27-year-old having ridden the Giro d'Italia as well.

Kelland O'Brien (Jayco AlUla)

• Debut

The Olympic Team Pursuit gold medallist hasn't ridden the Tour de France before, but he does have Grand Tour experience, twice having ridden the Vuelta, and of course has proven that there is no problem with performing on the biggest stages. The power of Kelland O'Brien will be a valuable asset for the team, particularly when it comes to the opening team time trial. He came third in the race against the clock at the Australian National Championships this year and also was seventh in the individual time trial at the Vuelta last year. The 28-year-old is also bound to have his power put to use across the stages, combining with the force of Luke Durbridge to work on the front when required.

Sebastian Berwick (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA)

• Debut

The 26-year-old already has two Grand Tours under his belt, a Giro d'Italia where he took a stage top three in 2023 and a Vuelta a España in 2021. Both of these were when he was riding with Israel-Premier Tech, though now with Caja Rural-Seguros RGA securing a wildcard, Sebastian Berwick is getting his first shot at the Tour de France. There was no doubt that the climber earned his spot on the team this season, not only coming sixth overall at the Tour of Oman, seventh at Milano-Torino and then going on to claim the overall win at the Tour of Turkey before also adding fifth overall at the recent Tour of Slovenia.

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Jonas Vingegaard has said his mental state is just where it needs to be ahead of the Tour de France as he looks to wrest back the yellow jersey from four-time winner Tadej Pogačar and add to his 2022 and 2023 titles.

Having already won the Giro d'Italia this season, Vingegaard changed the build-up to the Tour, which he's done for the past five editions – two of which he won and the other three he came second – and he's much happier for it.

Sitting down to speak to international media on Thursday evening, Vingegaard was calm as ever, smiling from ear to ear, including when he saw close rival Pogačar outside of the Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau for a great photo of two modern GC greats.

"[I feel] better, stronger. I would even say happier in my mental state," said Vingegaard, to a full room of international journalists. "Also, I've had a very good year so far this year, and I've enjoyed riding a bit more this year than I did last year.

"We tried something new, which was also the plan, because I think we realised after last year that it wasn't really so enjoyable to do what we did every year, so now we tried to change to mix it up with the preparation for the Tour, which has been going really well this year. So in a mental state, I'm at a very good place."

Vingegaard, like Pogačar in 2024, is going for the Giro-Tour double, which was a change in the Slovenian's calendar, which returned him to the top step of a Grand Tour for the first time since 2021.

And in a similar way to his contemporary, while he dominated the mountain stages and won five of the stages, he at no point had to over-exert more energy than was required, able even to allow teammate Sepp Kuss to go up the road during the third week of the race as he had the maglia rosa sewn up.

"I mean, of course, without taking anything away from anyone from the Giro, that's true that I didn't have to completely kill myself, and I didn't come out of the Giro completely on my knees," said Vingegaard.

"That makes also means that you can recover faster upwards and start your training and get into a good rhythm quicker, because if you're on your knees after the Giro, you need two weeks, maybe even more, to recover, then it's hard to start building towards the Tour, because then the Tour is already coming. So for me at least, I came out of the Giro in a good way, and pretty quickly I could start building towards the Tour."

Vingegaard clarified further on how much happier he was to have already had the Giro in his legs heading to the Tour, and with this change-up, he seems to be arriving in brutally strong form.

It's also his first start at the Tour since he won it in 2023 and well defeated Pogačar in the final week that he hasn't had a major crash in the spring which has disrupted his preparation.

In 2024, his life-threatening crash at Itzulia almost saw him miss the race, and a year ago he missed a long stint of racing after crashing out of Paris-Nice with a concussion.

"It was more the whole schedule going to the Tour that I said that, like, I didn't really fancy doing what I did for the last five years," he said.

"This year it didn't motivate me so much to just do the same thing over and over again, and I personally needed a change. We then decided to mix it up completely and do the Giro."

It's victory and victory only that he's after across the next three weeks.

"The Tour de France is still the biggest race, it's still the race you really want to win, not saying that I'm not happy with with what I've won already this year, because I am extremely happy, especially winning the Giro d'Italia and now I've won all three GTs, but again, the Tour de France is just the biggest race of the year, and I'm here also to go for the victory."

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Four-time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome has finally officially announced that he has retired from professional cycling after not racing for the whole of 2026.

Speaking at a Skoda brand ambassador event, according to the New York Times, Froome confirmed his career is over.

"Unfortunately, there was that fall last summer," Froome said of his serious crash last August that left him with a host of injuries including one to his heart that required surgery. "That wasn't the way I wanted it to end. But even then, I knew it was over."

Froome, 41, had a successful career with Team Sky, now Netcompany Ineos, including winning seven Grand Tours and numerous top week-long stage races, and netting podium finishes in both the World Championships and the Olympics.

While his last victory dates from 2018, Froome remains one of a select circle of just six riders to take four or more victories in the Tour de France.

Froome's departure from the sport, long-expected after months of silence about his status, comes after he left Israel-Premier Tech last last year, then added a part-time gig as Chief Innovation Officer for the French AI company Vekta. In June, he announced his attendance at the Tour de France as a Skoda ambassador.

The British stage racing specialist turned pro in 2007 with the small Konica-Minolta team in South Africa. However, his career only really took off a year after he signed with Sky in 2010, when both he and the British squad began a meteoric rise towards dominating Grand Tour stage racing for the best part of a decade.

While Froome's first of two victories in the Vuelta a España, in 2011, was only confirmed in August 2019 after Juan José Cobo was stripped of the title for doping violations, his pathway to repeated triumphs in the Tour de France proved to be a very different story.

A runner-up spot in the 2012 Tour de France behind then teammate Bradley Wiggins was subsequently followed by outright wins for Froome in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017, in an era when, barring a crash-out in 2014, Froome and Team Sky seemingly brooked no rivals in cycling's biggest bike race.

Froome's trademark attack was a blazing series of high-speed accelerations in the mountains, something which netted him notable wins on Tour climbs as prestigious as the Mont Ventoux, the La Pierre Saint-Martin and La Planche des Belles Filles.

However, he will also be remembered for his impromptu run up the Mont Ventoux in the 2016 Tour, after he was entangled in a collision with other riders and a race motorbike near the finish. Forced to run on foot up the climb before getting a replacement bike, it did not stop him from taking a third Tour de France in four years.

Froome's relentless run of Tour victories made him just one of six riders to date, including the world's current number one racer Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), to rack up four wins or more in the Grande Boucle. That non-stop success also considerably helped Team Sky maintain its position as the decade's leading force in three-week racing. But while it was notable that Froome never won a single one-day race in his career, he nonetheless extended his stage racing predominance to three victories in the Critérium du Dauphiné, two in the Tour de Romandie and two in the Tour of Oman.

After his fourth - and what proved to be his final - Tour de France win in 2017, Froome then added a victory in the Vuelta a España to his palmares the same year. In the process, he became the first rider to win two Grand Tours in a single season since arch-rival Alberto Contador took the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta in 2008.

More was to come as in what was arguably his hardest-fought Grand Tour triumph of all in the 2018 Giro d'Italia, where Froome overcame early injuries to stage a late spectacular long-distance attack across the Colle delle Finestre and definitively oust fellow-Briton Simon Yates from the overall lead.

At that point, the first defending champion in all three Grand Tours concurrently since Bernard Hinault 30 years previously, Froome's ability each July to rise above rivals of the calibre of Vincenzo Nibali through to Nairo Quintana and above all Contador seemed unmatchable.

However, the shadows of suspicion were not far away, either. A long case regarding an adverse analytical finding for salbutamol in the 2017 Vuelta led to calls from figures as well-established as Hinault for Froome not to take part in the 2018 Tour de France. The case was only resolved in Froome's favour just days before that year's race.

Froome, and Team Sky too, have always strongly insisted there has never been any wrongdoing on their part, but further questions have emerged over the team's performances in that era.

Investigations into the use of Therapeutic Use Exemption forms, and the conviction of former team doctor Richard Freeman for ordering a banned substance, as well as other medics employed by the team, like Geert Leinders, have all contributed to the suspicions. In addition, there has been a recent investigation into Froome's longstanding personal carer, David Rozman, by the International Testing Agency (ITA) for his alleged links to the doctor at the centre of the Aderlass doping enquiry.

The final years

Back on the racing front, Froome himself was unable to repeat his Giro success in the Tour de France, where former teammate Geraint Thomas' rise to yellow proved unstoppable. Froome himself had to settle for third in Paris.

Hopes of a comeback in 2019 were then dashed by a major accident ahead of the Critérium du Dauphiné with massive injuries, including a fractured right femur, a fractured elbow and fractured ribs, making for a lengthy comeback period.

Meanwhile, teammate Egan Bernal claimed his first Tour de France victory in a landslide-curtailed queen stage.

The following year, Froome was then not selected by Ineos - the successor of Sky as sponsors - for the Tour de France for the first time since 2011, and at the end of the season he moved onto Israel Start-Up Nation, which would prove to be his last team.

The final five years of Froome's career saw the Briton fight a brave, but ultimately very challenging battle against both lingering effects from his injuries, and a sport which had moved on since his domination. There were flashes of brilliance such as at Alpe d'Huez in the 2022 Tour, where he placed third behind Tom Pidcock.

But perhaps fittingly, his participation in the Vuelta a España - the race where it all began for Froome back in 2011 - was to prove to be his last Grand Tour, and a series of major injuries in another training crash last autumn made it even more unlikely he would continue into his fifth decade as a racer.

He suffered a collapsed lung and fractured vertebrae,and later revealed that he was facing another long recovery after suffering a torn pericardium in his heart that was repaired surgically.

On November 15th, hours prior to the Israel-Premier Tech shutting off its social media channels ahead of a name and flag change to NSN Cycling, the team used its final post to thank the Briton and announce his departure from the team.

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The Team Presentation for this year's Tour de France was more than a traditional introduction of 23 squads and their riders in a fashion show of gleaming bikes, newly-installed national champions and limited-edition outfits. Barcelona turned the team presentation into a one-and-half-hour cinematic experience, blending sports with circus, dance, music, and popular structures created by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.

The Spanish city made a splashy debut Thursday evening for its debut as the Grand Départ for the French Grand Tour. The teams paraded 850 metres along the famous pedestrian boulevard of Avenue de Gaudí.

A steady stream of teams began the process on their bikes starting at Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau, the world's largest Art Nouveau complex. Then the eight riders for each team rode their bikes onto a main stage in front of the towering basilica of Sagrada Familia with enthusiastic crowds seeing both Tour riders and the Gaudí masterpiece in front of them.

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA was the first team to ride through throngs of spectators on Avenue de Gaudí and arrive on the stage to join a trio of journalists serving as hosts - Carlos de Andrés, Elisenda Pineda and Jordi Basté.

Lotto Intermarché was among the first group of teams introduced, being recognised for their 40th appearance in the Tour.

Two teams featured all-French lineups - Groupama-FDJ United and TotalEnergies - with Groupama's Romain Grégoire showcasing his new red-white-blue national jersey as the road race national champion.

It was just one week ago that many of the national champions earned their signature jerseys to display at the Tour. There were 11 of the titlists clad in their country's colours and about to flash their wearable trophies at the Grand Tour.

In addition to Grégoire, new road champions included Egan Bernal (Netcompany Ineos) of Colombia, Felix Engelhardt (Jayco AlUla) of Germany, Mexican Isaac Del Toro (UAE Emirates XRG), Kazakh Nicolas Vinokurov (XDS Astana) and Fred Wright (Pinarello-Q36.5) of Great Britain. George Bennett (NSN Cycling) for New Zealand, won his title back in January.

Two teams featured a pair of road champions each, with Lidl-Trek having USA's Quinn Simmons and Czechia's Mathias Vacek, a double road champion. Uno-X Mobility's pair of winners were Anders Skaarseth of Norway and Magnus Cort of Denmark, who is set to retire at the end of the year.

Time trial national champions will only sport their national jerseys one day, on stage 16's 26.1km contest, as the custom skin suits are not allowed in the team event, which will open the Tour on Saturday in Barcelona.

The five riders to watch in the race against the clock this year are Italian Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Irishman Ryan Mullen (NSN Cycling), Vacek of Czechia and a pair of riders on UAE Team Emirates-XRG, German Nils Politt and Austrian Felix Großschartner.

Teams like Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Jayco-AlUla modelled their new Tour change-out kits with splashes of green with traditional colours, while Movistar and Visma-Lease a Bike jerseys included geometric and architectural drawings inspired by Gaudi.

Visma-Lease a Bike had two Barcelona-inspired Tour kits, and two-time Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard sported the the dark kit Thursday evening, though the team were seen on a TTT training ride in their lighter-coloured 'rest day' kits.

"I'm happy to be here in Barcelona. I was here also three months ago for the [Volta a] Catalunya, and I enjoyed my time back then," Vingegaard told the crowd, referring to his GC win in March at the seven-day Spanish stage race.

"I feel like I'm ready for the Tour. Yes, I had a very good year. I think I'm better than I've ever been before, and I'm really looking forward to this race as well."

The crowd saved their loudest cheers for the final squad, with four-time Tour winner Tadej Pogačar all smiles with freshly-cut blonde hair, who rode on the stage last with his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates.

"Already GC day the first day with the team time trial," the defending champion said about the first day of competition in Barcelona on Saturday.

"I'm just happy to be here in front of this [Sagrada Familia], in front of these people here, and just a beautiful reception here in Barcelona."

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Tadej Pogačar has only raced for 16 days so far in 2026, but he looked beyond simple statistics to make it clear he is ready for the 2026 Tour de France as he spoke about his ambitions for the next three weeks.

"I feel pretty good. I only did 16 days of racing, but the training kilometres also count, and there have been a lot, so I think we're ready," Pogačar said.

The Slovenian won Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and was second in Paris-Roubaix in a unique, complex and long Spring Classics campaign that ended before his victory at the Tour de Romandie.

After a break and a three-week altitude camp, he won the Tour de Suisse, putting him on track to target a fifth Tour victory.

Pogačar has often shaken up his race programme and goals, but the Tour de France remains central to his season. The race is the biggest goal of his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad, which has dominated the sport thanks to the Slovenian. Their respect is reciprocal.

"I've enjoyed racing all my life, but I enjoy it maybe even more because I stay in the same team with the same riders and same people around me," Pogačar said, in a sign of loyalty.

The 2026 Tour de France is again expected to be a battle with Jonas Vingegaard, but Pogačar warned against simplifying the GC battle.

"The competition between me and Jonas in the last few years was spectacular, and I think it will continue for a few more years. I hope so," Pogačar said.

Pogačar shared the press conference stage with Isaac del Toro, and the Mexican was asked three questions in Spanish as recognition of his status and potential. Del Toro made it clear he was riding in support of Pogačar on his Tour debut, but Pogačar seemed to enjoy hyping up Del Toro's chances.

"I don't think he (Vingegaard) is the only one who can come close; there are a few guys here who can aim for the victory, including this guy next to me," Pogačar said.

When asked as a final question what Pogačar hoped for the next three weeks, he replied mischievously: "That Isaac wins the Tour de France."

Be careful what you wish for, Tadej.

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Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz offered a united front against any probing questions about a possible Tour de France rivalry inside Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, refuting any suggestion that they will clash as they both fight for a place on their final podium in Paris.

"I know where you want to go," Evenepoel said, rebuking a subtle question from a Dutch journalist about individual goals, during the big-rider press conference in Barcelona on Thursday.

"You want to hear me say I want to be on the podium and hear Florian say he wants to be on the podium. Of course, we want to be on the podium, but whether it's him or myself, if we do it in a good way without this negative energy, it's good for both of us and for the team.

"We both want to do what we already did in the past: to be on the podium behind Tadej and Jonas. Then be up there as much as possible for stage wins as well."

Lipowitz followed a similar line, with a slightly more philosophical approach.

"If we do our best every day, we should be happy with the outcome," the German rider said.

"We'll see where we are after three weeks. If we don't make any mistakes, we have to be happy with any result."

Further questions about what Evenepoel and Lipowitz want to prove to themselves and to other people and about what the two could learn from each other further seemed to irritate Evenepoel.

"Nothing," Evenepoel responded. "I don't know what to say.

"We don't need to learn anything from each other; we just need to be ourselves. We go to the Tour with two leaders, with two different characteristics, and we'll do our own thing in our own way.

"I'm happy with who I am and don't want to change that. I think Lipo is, too. It's a strange question…"

Evenepoel was clear about wanting to win a stage during the 2026 Tour, picking the stage 16 time trial as a natural goal. But he was evasive about the Red Bull team time trial race strategy, where Red Bull are one of the favourites but where the Evenepoel-Lipowitz partnership will be first tested.

"I'm not sure if I can reveal our race strategy. You'll see. The start order is the start order, and the finish order is the finish order. We won't reveal much more," Evenepoel said.

The Belgian was more open early in the press conference, when talking about his relationship with Lipowitz and how it has been built at training camps and at the Volta a Catalunya in March, on the same roads as the opening stages of the Tour.

"We've known for a long time that we'd start the Tour together; it's something we're prepared for," he said.

"We rode Catalunya together, and Florian was second, and I was fifth. There was one day we had to work for each other, and we made a change and a sacrifice, and it ended well. There's nothing special to mention anymore from my side.

"We showed we worked well together, so there's not much to add," Lipowitz added.

"We can also show in the Tour now that we can work together and that we will support each other."

Lipowitz and Evenepoel know that their real Tour podium rivals are Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Paul Seixas.

"Those three showed this year that they're super strong, but as a team, we'll also show in the Tour that we prepared well too," Lipowitz said.

"The race will tell. They are on a really good level, but I hope we will also show good legs."

To that, Evenepoel gave his thumbs up to that statement of unity and intention.

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Perhaps the most highly anticipated Tour de France debut in decades is about to arrive on Saturday in Barcelona, as 19-year-old super talent Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) embarks on a journey into the unknown, a first Grand Tour with expectations that match the size of the furore which has followed him throughout 2026.

France has waited 45 years for a successor to Bernard Hinault, the last home winner in the men's race, and for many, Seixas is the rider who could finally bring the yellow jersey back to France.

As he arrived at the top riders' press conference on Thursday at the Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau, not something normally afforded to debutants – let alone the youngest starter for 89 years – Seixas took it all in his stride, though he is no normal new starter.

While still a teenager, Seixas gives off little impression that the pressure of being the great French hope for the Tour is getting to him as he sat in a team-branded white shirt and chinos and fielded questions from the media in French and English.

On all accounts, he is ready, but the team time trial on stage 1 and punchy stage 2 finale to Montjuïc will be when the baptism of fire really begins. Ambitious but realistic is the overarching impression of Seixas' words, but will his actions be able to match when the chaos that is the Tour de France welcomes a new player?

"Of course, you have one part where you want to win, but now it's the Tour. It's a new experience at first for me," said the 19-year-old.

"You want to win something, you know you can, and you already did normally. First, I have to do the experience, and of course, there are different ways to win in a race like this. I will see how it goes, how I can perform, at which level in which place, and we'll see how we can call it a win or not."

In years gone by, other young French hopes might have targeted stage wins or the King of the Mountains jersey on debut, a logical stepping stone before becoming a fully-fledged GC rider. But it's safe to say Seixas is different once again; he's all in for the main objective.

"The priority is the manner of playing the GC, to see how it goes," he said. "After that, what position, I don't know yet, I can't tell you. But I will not take risks for something other than the GC. In any case, that depends on the situation."

Asked directly if there was anything he feared about making this debut, Seixas was measured once more in his response: "There's nothing special, I just need to see how I will recover after each stage, after 10-15 days, and we need to see how I can rest and recover. It's not about fearing; some days you can make mistakes, of course, and other days it will be complicated, but I will learn."

Following his crash and abandon from the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes last month, Seixas did hit a bump in the road to stardom he was flying down, having won La Flèche Wallonne and Itzulia Basque Country this season. He impressed behind heavy Tour favourite Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) at Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

He confirmed on Thursday that he is now fully recovered and also played down any questions of being over-eager after making the mistake which led to his crash on the penultimate stage of the renamed Dauphiné.

"At the beginning it was not easy, but now I'm doing well," said Sexias to two filled floors of international journalists. "I had nice, solid training a few days ago, and a good altitude camp at Les Arcs with the team, so I'm in good shape.

"No, it's not a topic, honestly. I think that to speak of impatience is perhaps a bit... I wouldn't say 'wacky' but almost. It was more in my race management that was different at the Dauphine. The crash was certainly an error on my part, but it wasn't a matter of impatience; it was just to try to position myself on the descent like any other rider. Mistakes happen, certainly, there is always impatience in a rider, but that shouldn't necessarily affect my style of racing."

As Seixas gets into the racing, statistics about his age will follow him throughout everything he does, good or bad, but the Frenchman knows that over three weeks, mistakes can happen and likely will happen, but he seems to be at peace with that.

"It's more about the fact it's my first Tour than my age or any statistics," he said. "I'll gain experience. It depends on the errors, but you can't be perfect and avoid all errors for three weeks - it's a long time."

Whether his debut can live up to all the expectations and pressure placed on him will become clear starting from Saturday, but with the maturity he has already shown throughout an imperfect build-up, Seixas appears to have the mental fortitude required of a Tour winner. The biggest question is whether he will have the legs.

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Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen will again team-up and unite at the Tour de France, with the Dutchman targeting the opening weekend in Barcelona and then hillier stages, while Philipsen takes aim at the sprint stages and the green points jersey.

Their talents and goals overlap somewhat but they have created a fearsome combination in recent years at Alpecin-Premier Tech, becoming sprinting and Classics race brothers in arms.

"We've never really had a fight so far, so it's all good," Philipsen joked during the top rider press conference in Barcelona on Thursday.

"I think we match very well with our capabilities. We also have clear stages that we can target at the Tour. I have to wait a little longer until stage 5 to Pau for the first big sprint chance, while Mathieu's chances come earlier.

"We just try to aim as well as possible to have a successful Tour, both for ourselves and for our team."

Philipsen won stage 1 in Lille last year and Van der Poel won stage 2 but then Philipsen crashed out on stage 3 and van der Poel came down with pneumonia after two weeks and was forced to abandon the Tour.

"Last year the Tour started really well for us but unfortunately, Jasper crashed and I became sick. Hopefully we can do it again this year, but then keep it going until Paris," Van der Poel said.

"I've had some good and bad Tours, hopefully this is a good one. We have a nice team here, we hope to go for it again. You need the legs to win in the first place but I like the stages that are like Classics."

The team time trial

Alpecin-Premier Tech recently trained for the Tour de France TTT on the motor racing circuit in Zolder in Belgium. Van der Poel went close to beating Tadej Pogačar in the Tour de Suisse time trial and will try to produce a similar performance on Saturday.

"I've been spending more hours on the bike than I usually do, so it was nice to work on this," Van der Poel said.

"I don't think there's something special in the strategy, it's about getting to the finish as fast as possible to the last two climbs and the technical section. Then it will be up to me to launch there and go to the finish. We don't have a GC [contender] and that makes it a bit nicer for us."

Van der Poel also seems ready to fight with the GC riders on the hilly stage 2 circuits of Montjuïc but fears Pogačar and Evenepoel.

Philipsen believes there are five or six possible sprint stages, including the final stage to Paris, despite the new Montemartre circuit.

"I think the sprinters will always be motivated to ride to Paris," he said, considering the many mountain stages in the final week of the Tour. "I think the Montmartre finish is still a chance of a sprint finish because the climb is a bit far from the finish this year."

"For the strong sprinters, I think there's another chance on stage 12 too. Of course the hardest part of the Tour is the last week and you just have to survive it.

"This year there are maybe four or six chances but you never know how the peloton rides the stages. We try to win as many as possible."

Philipsen accepts he will have to wait until stage 5 in Pau for the first sprinter's showdown.

"It's just how it is. The TT is important for the team and so will be all out. Then there are stages to get the legs going, to be ready for stage 5. That's the first real test for my Tour de France."

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Amid multiple heatwaves across Europe, the riders of the Tour de France are taking every measure in preparing for more blistering temperatures. However, Visma-Lease a Bike - who each year have to change out their normal jerseys because of a clash with the Tour de France yellow leader's jersey - have put the kit redesign for major contender Jonas Vingegaard and teammates into the hands of their fans.

The design chosen by the public ended up being the black version by a slim margin, even as the riders themselves preferred the lighter edition and were seen training today in their 'rest day jersey' in the lead-up to the opening stage in Barcelona on Saturday.

Black fabric absorbs more of the sun's light and converts it to heat, as opposed to lighter colours that reflect more light and stay cooler, but Visma-Lease a Bike's Head of Performance Mathieu Heijboer explained in a press release that the fabric used in the jersey will keep riders from overheating.

"It's not at all strange that people think a dark jersey absorbs more heat than a light one, as studies in the past have indeed shown that darker clothing can be warmer than lighter colours," Heijboer said.

"However, the textile industry in elite sport has developed to such an extent that it has been discovered that much bigger differences can be achieved with specific fabrics. The choice of fabric has a far greater impact on heat retention than the colour."

Although Heijboer ignores a direct comparison of the same technical fabric in light versus dark colours, he was confident the performance of the black kit would stand up to hot weather.

"We conducted multiple tests in climate chambers, where solar radiation is simulated. In these tests, we examined how quickly the temperature rises underneath a jersey. We also carried out tests using mannequins that can sweat. All results show that the choice of fabric plays a much greater role than the colour.

"Ultimately, you want to make sure the body doesn't heat up too quickly in the sun. It's also about how quickly moisture is dissipated. Does the moisture stay in the jersey, or does it evaporate quickly enough? The fibres used in these jerseys are treated to be UV-resistant. That UV protection is an important factor, as it ensures that some of the light is reflected rather than absorbed."

In a sport where marginal gains are the main focus for performance, it's surprising that one of the sport's top teams would let their fans choose the jersey colour over the preference of the riders, but as in past years, Visma-Lease a Bike have put their jerseys up for sale to the public. Because the voting between the light and dark designs was so close, they've included both in their team shop.

The theme this year was 'the Architect', with etchings inspired by the works and sketches of Antoni Gaudí, a Catalan designer responsible in part for the massive Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona, which has been under construction since 1884.

Other teams in the Tour de France have had to change out their kits to avoid conflict with the special jerseys of the race. The Movistar Team shifted to a geometric medium blue design away from the white one that could be confused with the best young rider jersey. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe added a larger colour panel to their normal kit for the same reason.

Tom Pidcock's Pinarello-Q36.5 team went the opposite direction, swapping out their deep blue and gold jersey for an almost white, grey and pale blue design for a 'fresher summer-weather look and feel'.

You can see the full rundown of the special Tour de France kits here.

The 23 Tour de France teams have all arrived in Barcelona and have begun their final preparations, combining training rides, final team time trial testing, sponsors and media obligations and rest and recovery before the three weeks of racing begin on Saturday.

The official team presentation is scheduled for Thursday evening, with the main stage in the shadow of the stunning Sagrada Família basilica. Riders are expected to enjoy a coffee-ride day on Friday before Saturday's opening TTT stage on the streets of central Barcelona.

Tadej Pogačar has kept a low profile so far but opted for a split training session on Thursday morning. Pogačar stood out in his World Champion's jersey and matching white shorts and opted for a short haircut to fight the expected July heat.

The Slovenian and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates first shook down their new time trial bikes and tested their clothing and aero helmet before switching to their road bikes for a short ride into the hills behind their hotel.

Paul Seixas and his Decathlon CMA CGM teammates headed to the Montmeló Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya motor racing circuit for some final team time trial training. The riders used the traffic-free, high-speed track to practice their riding order, turn length, start strategy and power efforts.

French ProTeam TotalEnergies also hit the track for some final TTT work and equipment testing.

Remco Evenepoel and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammates tested their TTT set-ups out on the road, with the Belgian riding what looks like the final version of a new and secret Specialized Shiv TT bike. Cyclingnews was the first to spot a black version of the bike at the team hotel on Wednesday. On Thursday Evenepoel rode a dazzle camouflage version in public.

Visma-Lease a Bike trained in their lighter-coloured yellow but will race in the darker colours that the team said was inspired by the works and sketches of Antoni Gaudí.

Visma have not yet confirmed a new title sponsor but announced a three-year helmet sponsorship extension with Giro on Thursday morning and so will continue to use the huge Aerohead helmet in time trials. Later on Thursday Victor Campenaerts, Matteo Jorgenson and Davide Piganzoli attended an event to reveal the new Nimbl × Nike Étoile clothing collection. Jonas Vingegaard was one of the big-name riders to give final interviews to the Tour de France media pack before the team presentation.

With the teams based in and around Barcelona, some opted to ride the final kilometres of stage 2 that also ends on Montjuïc overlooking the city.

Cyclingnews saw the Bahrain Victorious riders on the Carrer des Sants main road that leads to three Montjuïc circuits. The climb on each of the three laps has been compared to the La Redoute climb of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and so teams are expected a GC battle, with the likes of Pogačar, Evenepoel, Vingegaard and Seixas immediately fighting for the bonus seconds.

With time gains and losses also expected in Saturday's time trial, the GC standings will already indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the big-name contenders, even before the Tour leaves Barcelona for France and the Pyrenees on Monday.

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The 2026 Tour de France start in Barcelona this Saturday is drawing ever closer, a special moment for bike racing fans everywhere, but particularly those from that city. Even as the lights prepare to go up on the first-ever Grand Départ from the capital of Catalunya, this week there were stark reminders, too, that a sponsorship red alert is flashing ever more ominously for one of Spain's top ProTeams.

Kern Pharma, for seven years the main backer of the team, announced earlier this year that they would be ending their sponsorship. The team's three stage victories in the 2024 Vuelta España are the major sporting achievement of that period, but the team have already racked up six wins this year, most recently a bronze medal in the Spanish National Championships road race thanks to 2024 Vuelta stage winner Urko Berrade.

However, with no new sponsor yet to emerge definitively, the team are eying the end of the season with increasing trepidation, and AS reported recenty that August 22 and the start of the Vuelta a España is the current deadline set by the team to establish a clear fix on their mid-to-long-term future.

Also according to AS, the hope is currently at least to preserve the team's structure into 2027, even if it can no longer operate at the ProTeam level. However, the newspaper also reports that the 22 riders currently in the squad have been given the team's blessing to look elsewhere for a job in 2027.

Despite various negotiations currently in place, manager Juanjo Oroz told El País recently, "All of that has be seen as a 'No' [to potential backing] until the signature is there in lack and white. Before that, it's all lies".

"We don't want to be ingenuous. We're trying to work hard every day, to maintain our legacy and keep the essence of the team alive.

"If we have to take a step back, we will. This isn't about egos, it's about passion. This is where we build bike riders from the ground upwards."

A little over two weeks ago, El País reported that Oroz sent out a general email warning the team about the uphill struggle for next season.

"I couldn't do otherwise," Oroz said. "I tried to talk to everybody to let them know that, much to our regret, we can't guarantee them a contract for next season, so everybody needs to make plans for their future.

"We're not going to judge or penalise any rider for signing with another team. That would be over the top, and it's not my style. I want to be transparent and realistic with them."

Kern Pharma's plight contrasts sharply with that of another long-established Spanish ProTeam, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, which unexpectedly received a wildcard invitation this year to the Tour de France. But the sponsor crisis is far from exclusive to Spain, or even to teams like Kern that are not doing the Tour de France, but rather heading to the start of the Sibiu Cycling Tour stage race in Romania this weekend.

French ProTeam TotalEnergies are also struggling to find backing for 2027 - and they are taking part in cycling's premier event this year.

However, Kerns Phama's predicament is a bleak reminder that while the Tour's presence in any country is traditionally viewed as a massively potential trickle-down boost to cycling at grassroots level, the financial reality far from the bright lights of the world's biggest bike race often remains harsh.

And regarding his own team, Oroz said, "I decided to be clear with everybody in June, and the next step will be taken before the Vuelta starts."

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Tadej who? As the days count down to the start of the Tour de France, the home nation does not seem to care about Tadej Pogačar dominating the sport and possibly winning the Tour for a historic fifth time. Instead, Paul Seixas-mania is in full flow, the hype train travelling like a TGV between Barcelona and Paris.

The 19-year-old super talent is on the cover of Thursday's L'Equipe sports newspaper and all over their website and social media, with a three-page interview and a special documentary video.

Swiss newspaper Les Temps compared Seixas to footballer Kylian Mbappé and NBA basketball player Victor Wembanyama, part of a generation of French sports stars that are inspiring a nation and used by French president Emmanuel Macron for a sports-power political play.

Paris Match magazine has reportedly tried to interview Seixas' mother at the gates of the school where she teaches, biographies on the 19-year-old are already being written, and publishers are trying to buy every photograph of when Seixas won races as a schoolboy.

Everyone would love to have Seixas' possible mobile number, but he prefers to spend time with friends on Snapchat rather than talk to his team management on WhatsApp.

Daniel Benson recently reported on his Substack that Pinarello-Q36.5 are ready to make him the highest-paid rider in the sport when his contract with Decathlon CMA CGM ends in 2027. Other sources are convinced he will join UAE Team Emirates-XRG as Pogačar's heir, while Decathlon and CMA CGM are determined to hold on to him.

Seixas travelled to Barcelona on Tuesday and enjoyed his first training ride with his Decathlon teammates on Wednesday. The L'Equipe interview was done as Seixas travelled to the airport to fly to Spain. Every moment of his life for the next three weeks will be controlled and scheduled around the pain and intensity of racing his first-ever Tour de France.

Yet Seixas seems unperturbed and still in control of his life, unsure of what the next three weeks will bring and how fighting for victory at the Tour could change his life. For every probing question from L'Equipe, Seixas has a simple, sincere answer that reflects his natural confidence and pragmatic approach to life and racing the Tour.

"I wouldn't say my life changed that much. I don't even know if I'd say it changed at all," Seixas said of the impact of his decision to ride the Tour at just 19.

"This pressure, which is actually quite positive, is something I put on myself enough. I don't take on other people's pressure; it's my own. I'm often quite ambitious, I have my own ideas about what I want to do and how I want to do it, and that's pressure enough as it is."

Seixas will be the youngest rider to debut at the Tour since 1937 and is more than two years younger than any other rider in the race. Yet he is dismissive of the hyperbole, the statistics and the expectations.

"For me, it's simply a childhood dream come true. I'm incredibly happy to be going to the Tour," Seixas said.

"I keep telling myself that I have to enjoy it, even though it's a very tough, very difficult race. It will be a good experience. I'm coming with the idea that it remains a childhood dream and that I have to make the most of it."

Being so young, Seixas' first memory of the Tour is from 2013 when Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana raced up Mont Ventoux, and 2014, when Jean-Christophe Péraud and Thibaut Pinot finished second and third behind Vincenzo Nibali.

"My best friend, Cyprien, and I, when we were younger, talked a lot about the Tour, saying how amazing it must be to ride it," he said.

"Now I'm the one who's going to start this race. It's an incredible opportunity, I really understand that. I'm super motivated and happy to be able to fulfil this childhood dream.

"I've only just realised, in the last few days, that it's really going to happen, that I'm really going to be at the starting line. It's incredible!"

Seixas is aware that the French public will cheer for him as he takes on Tadej Pogačar, just as they are cheering on the French football team in the FIFA World Cup.

Seixas shrugs off the pressure but seems to want to pay back their French fans for their support. He has the natural confidence in his ability that Pinot and other recent French riders lacked. He really does seem the best French talent since the last men's French Tour winner, Bernard Hinault.

"I have to find a balance between thrilling the crowds and managing my own effort. But at some point, I'll have to give it my all. I hope to excite the fans and, above all, perform well for myself," he said.

"I know the Tour is very important to my grandparents, but I also know it's very important to all French people. They want to see the best riders from their country at the start of this race, and I think I'm one of them today. I hope to thrill the French this summer."

French cycling fans held their breath when Seixas crashed hard at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in mid-June, fearing his Tour chances had ended before they started. He suffered nasty road rash on his arm and hurt his knee but was able to train in the Alps in recent weeks.

"When I crashed, I immediately saw that the wounds were superficial, so I didn’t think beyond the crash. I was more worried about my knee. But an MRI scan quickly reassured me; there was just significant swelling, nothing broken," he said.

"Rest assured, everything is fine, I'm really in great shape. I feel very good."

Decathlon delayed naming their final Tour squad and eventually opted to include sprinter Olav Kooij, who has recovered from an early-season virus. His presence will help ease the pressure on Seixas' wide but young shoulders, but he remains ambitious, no doubt targeting the GC without saying it specifically.

"The fact that Olav is here and that there's a small sprint contingent on the team gives me an interesting dual objective; it also takes some of the pressure off," he said.

"Olav is a good guy. He's also motivated by the general classification project and will help me when he can, when it's convenient for him, in addition to his sprints. It's complementary.

"The goal is to achieve the best possible overall result, to learn, to see where I stand as the days go by. And above all, to see how I feel over three weeks."

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Former Lidl-Trek team manager Luca Guercilena has been confirmed as general director of RCS Sport's cycling division, a role that involves overseeing the organisation of the Giro d'Italia, Milan-San Remo, Il Lombardia and all its other races.

The specific nature of Guercilena's job has yet to be revealed, but according to a report by Daniel Benson, it will not be an identical role to that of former Giro d'Italia race director Mauro Vegni, who retired in February this year.

Guercilena is expected to start in his new position on September 1.

The full list of races Guercilena will be coordinating overall is a long one, running from the men's Giro d'Italia to Milan-San Remo, Il Lombardia, UAE Tour, Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-Torino, Giro Women, Giro Next Gen, Giro d'Abruzzo and the Gran Piemonte e Lombardia.

Renowned for his versatile and hands-on approach as a manager, Guercilena started managerial work as a sports director with young talents at the legendary Mapei squad in the early noughties. For the last 11 years, he has been the team manager at Lidl-Trek, which he is set to leave following the Tour de France as part of a series of major changeovers at the German WorldTour squad. He has also had a spell as Swiss National team coach, working closely with former TT giant Fabio Cancellara.

At Lidl-Trek, aside from Guercilena's imminent departure, 2010 Tour de France winner Andy Schleck will soon be starting as new team CEO and Grischa Niermann, formerly with Visma-Lease a Bike, is set to become the new Chief Sporting Officer. In yet more changes, Dan Lorang, previously with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe will shortly become the new Lidl-Trek Head of Performance.

Regarding his new post in the Giro d'Italia, Guercilena, 52, said in a press release: "My goal will be to further enhance the expertise already within the organization, strengthen the dialogue with institutions and teams, and contribute to the development of new international projects, helping take cycling to even greater heights."

"Luca Guercilena's appointment marks a strategic step in strengthening our group's cycling division," added Paolo Bellino, CEO and General Manager of RCS Sports & Events.

"His expertise, combined with his in-depth knowledge of the international cycling landscape, will enable us to take a further leap forward both in terms of race organisation and future development.

"We are confident that his contribution will be instrumental in consolidating our position as a global benchmark in the world of cycling."

As Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG face up to the toughest bike race in the world and the possibility of winning the Tour de France for a fifth time, what everybody wants to know is how he's going to try to do it. Because while for the last two years, Pogačar already seemed to be streets ahead of the opposition, at the same time, in order to stay ahead, the battle for improvement in performance can never let up.

In part 1 of this two-part interview, UAE Team Emirates-XRG Head of Performance Jeroen Swart already discussed Pogačar's margin for progression, the dangers of mental stress and the specific training for the Tour.

Here in part 2, he runs the rule over Pogačar's rivals, takes an even deeper dive into his training strategies, looks at why he can produce his trademark ultra-long solo breakaways and discusses important changes in nutrition. Finally, Swart looks at one of the key recent developments in the sport that have helped make the UAE team, as well as its top individual rider, the most prolifically successful in the world.

Q&A with UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Head of Performance

Cyclingnews (CN): Following on from what we've already talked about regarding Pogačar's performance, can you explain a bit more about how his low-cadence torque work helps him? Or to put it another way, can we still expect to see Tadej racing in the high mountains, trying to drop people using those ultra-fast accelerations?

Jeroen Swart (JS): Yes we can. But when it comes to the torque work, it is not just about the performance in the moment, though, it's also a very key aspect of durability.

Durability is the ability to continue to perform close to your maximum level after a prolonged workload. In some of the highest workload stages in the mountains, after three or four cat. 1 or HC climbs, we're looking at total energy expenditure exceeding 4,000 kilojoules, and that's when you're getting to the point where most individuals demonstrate a loss of ability to produce power for a particular duration.

An example is, if you did the first climb as hard as you could, there would be a particular power output that you could sustain for 20 minutes, say 450 watts as just a rough example.

Most athletes will start to show a decline in that ability after 3,000 or 3,500 kilojoules of energy have been expended. Also how that energy is expended is important, too, because we know that any work done above critical power – which is your power output that you can sustain for a prolonged duration, 45 minutes to an hour – has a more detrimental effect on your ability to produce power later on.

So we look at the various different aspects that can enhance durability because that's typically when the difference is made is on the final col, the final ascent to the line and after 4,000 or 4,500 kilojoules of energy expenditure.

Previously, that was a weakness of Tadej. When he lost the Tour de France in 2022, that was on a stage that exceeded 4,200 kilojoules of energy expenditure. So one thing that the strength work does is it maintains the ability of muscles to perform.

CN: Can you explain in non-scientific terms how that has changed for Pogacar?

JS: If you lift heavy weights and then have to lift a very light weight repeatedly, your ability to lift that light weight repeatedly will be enhanced compared to if you hadn't lifted heavy weights in the first place.

That's an overly simplistic explanation, but I'm sure you understand what I mean by that. If you have some extra strength in those muscles, then you can harness that strength late in a race or late in a stage, and that improves the durability, the ability to perform close to your fresh level.

Tadej normally loses less than 1% of his fresh performance despite having done 4,500 kilojoules of work, which is why he's able to do these long attacks late in a race and get away and stay away. Other riders are starting to have that fatigue and that's one of his key attributes, his ability to have exceptional durability at a very high workload. In Tadej's case, his durability is exceptional.

CN: Is also fair to say that his metabolism is also critical? Because I remember reading somewhere that his carbohydrate intake had gone up from 60 or 80 to 120 grams in an hour.

JS: Most of the teams are doing that now, and the research has shown that that is actually beneficial, and that is a key part of it. But one thing is actually ingesting the carbohydrate, yet there's no point ingesting the carbohydrate if you can't use it.

You have to train the guts to absorb it, so the receptors that absorb glucose and fructose, which are two different receptors – both can be trained and increased, particularly the fructose component has increased. In years gone past, most of the drinks were two thirds maltodextrin, which is essentially glucose, and one third fructose. Then the science started to emerge that showed that there was a capacity to increase the fructose side of things even further.

So most of the newer drinks are a 1 to 0.8 ratio of glucose to fructose, so there's an increase in the fructose component, and that allows us to go up to 110 to 120 grams an hour.

On top of that, the latest trend now is to also include lactate as a fuel source, and that allows you to absorb even more energy than just the glucose and fructose that is in traditionally most energy drinks.

Most people in the past thought of lactate as a toxic byproduct of metabolism. It's not. It's a very essential step to maintain energy supply. And it's an essential fuel. Your brain and your heart and muscles that are working at a lower intensity, selectively use lactate as a fuel. So if you can continue to fuel the brain, the liver, the heart, and other muscles with lactate, then the other muscles can continue to use the glucose and fructose and therefore you increase your total energy supply.

I think these kinds of nutritional strategies have been one of the very key elements that have seen the increase in performance across the peloton in triathlons and in other endurance sports in the last five years. Fueling has become a huge factor in terms of the enhancement in performance that we've seen. It's really a big change that's happened in the last 5 years, and we can't underestimate that contribution to the performances that we've seen.

CN: Is there anything else?

JS: The other part is also training. So my former colleague [at UAE Team Emirates-XRG] Iñigo San Milan introduced the zone 2 training, and that zone 2 training is specifically targeted at enhancing the ability of the body to use carbohydrates and fats, but also very much the carbohydrate side in an oxidative way. In other words, to use them within mitochondria [inside cells] to produce energy, which is manyfold more efficient than using them glycolytically, which is when you produce lactate.

So enhancing that capacity is a key part of our training regime as well, the zone 2, what we now call metabolic training. We've shifted a little bit. I'm going to stop talking there now because otherwise we'd tell our competitors too much, but we've specifically focused on that as well.

But there are so many different facets to performance. It's really a lot of different layers that we add into the cake.

CN: Are there any other areas regarding performance that have become more interesting for you right now or in recent years'

JS: I will tell you one. I think the most interesting one at the moment is one that gets talked about a lot but I don't think is necessarily being used at the moment in a really fundamentally game-changing way other than maybe with us and a handful of teams, if that. And that is data integration.

We've spent the last five years very focused on it. That means taking all the disparate sources of data we get data from our group devices and these are multiple: heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep metrics, power meters on the bikes, the CORE sensor which measure the rider's temperature, self-reported wellness questionnaires, subjective comments from our coaches that are uploaded onto our data integration platform on a weekly basis. If the rider is not healthy, we get comments from the medical team. This rider has a niggle in his hamstring, This rider has a slight cough, otherwise feeling well and so on, those kinds of comments.

We have developed a very, very comprehensive data integration platform with our team in [Al platform] Analog and we've now utilised the AI capability of that to generate the most in-depth integrated reports on a monthly basis. We literally create a 20-plus page report which describes all the facets of a rider's training, performance, wellness, et cetera, in a single cohesive report which has a narrative as well.

What the AI is able to do so much better than a human being is that it's able to take all these different data sources and look at them and the temporal relationship between them.

That includes, for instance, if a rider goes to the laboratory and has his routine blood tests, we upload all of the blood results as well. Everything is integrated into a single cohesive narrative where we can really see how all these different variables, what they're saying and how they're saying the same thing.

So if there's a combined signal that comes from multiple different sources, it gives us that absolute clarity about which direction to go in and amazingly, the AI is even giving very concrete objectives, too.

CN: Such as?

JS: Advice in terms of 'Don't do another high intensity training session with this athlete until his heart rate variability score exceeds 150 for three days in a row', for instance. That's just a rough example, but that kind of advice means the coaches can then go back and say, 'OK [do this]' and we have rationale for it as well – why is this the case? Why shouldn't we be pushing harder now? Why should we back off? Why should we do a different type of training?

That has been the most interesting and from a developmental perspective, one of the most profound things that we are seeing emerging now: that ability to obtain this very cohesive data integration and reporting.

CN: Is it fair to call it a game-changer?

JS: Absolutely. It is. It is a game-changer. It gives us so much more clarity in terms of why we should do things and what we should do, and it saves a huge amount of time.

If I had to work on generating one of those reports for a single athlete, whether it's Tadej or Isaac [del Toro] or anybody else, it would probably take me a few days of focused work. Now we can generate 40 of them in an hour.

That's the ability of AI and that is where AI is valuable. You hear a lot about how AI has not proven to be as fruitful as it should be and that it's costly and so on, but in our case it truly is having a profound effect.

CN: Is that something that you think has affected the amount of success that the team has had?

JS: I think so. It's been a step-by-step process. Two years ago, we had all of the data integrated, and we could see it all visually and we could delve into it and we could look at it. And the AI two years ago would give us some interesting feedback prompted specifically by the user, you know, where you had to say 'I'm interested in this relationship. Tell me about that'.

The new level of AI is where we don't have to prompt it anymore. We just unleash it on the data and it comes back now with a very profound, in-depth and really meaningful analysis and insights as well as recommendations.

That is far more beneficial than it was two years ago, so we've continued, progressively to utilise this kind of technology - and it just continues to improve.

CN: A lot of what we've talked about feels like light years away from the last rider to win the Tour five times, Miguel Indurain, but one thing that remains relevant, maybe is that when asked which rival he feared the most, he'd always say 'Myself'.

At a time when there's been a lot of talk about Paul Seixas and the performance of Jonas Vingegaard this year in the Giro d'Italia, is Indurain's attitude the one that Tadej takes, or is it more about using his rivals as reference points – like Pogačar did, in a sense, with Seixas in Liège-Bastogne-Liège?

JS: I think it's definitely a matter of looking towards what rivals are doing, and I think Paul Sexas certainly is an absolute revelation to be at the level he's at at age 19. We don't really know what he can do in a Grand Tour. It's going to be absolutely fascinating to see whether he has the durability to be able to last into the third week and at the end of those very severe stages in excess of 4,000 or 4.500 kilojoules.

Does he have that ability? Science would say that it's something that has to evolve over time. It's why we originally had the U23 category and it was recognised back in the day, too it just didn't have a name. But has he already got that capability?

Jonas [Vinegegaard] has had a phenomenally good Giro. He seemed to be reaching a progressively higher level throughout, and I hesitate to say it but he was maybe riding within himself in the final mountain stages because he certainly wasn't challenged. So, I think we have to look at our rivals and they certainly are a big motivator. And I think it's going to be a really great Tour de France too, and one that will be exciting to watch.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

With the football World Cup knockout stage currently in full flow throughout North America, almost everyone who is anyone to do with the biggest sport in the world is already present, from ex-players to celebrities in New York, Toronto or Mexico City. Except, that is, for a certain Andrés Iniesta.

A Spanish legend, an all-time midfield icon, and crucially, a World Cup winner, Iniesta is instead in Barcelona, the city where he made his name as part of one of the great club sides of all time, ahead of the Tour de France Grand Départ. 16 years since scoring the winning goal against the Netherlands in South Africa and etching his name into World Cup immortality in the second half of extra time, Iniesta's business is away from just football.

Iniesta is one of the co-founders of NSN (Never Say Never), a global sports and event company which joined forces with Swiss investment firm Stoneweg in autumn of 2025, when what was the Israel-Premier Tech team changed ownership and went through a change of identity following an end-of-season filled with protests due to the armed conflict in Gaza.

Now operating as a Swiss team, but with a Catalan identity, NSN Cycling Team held a pre-Tour press conference on Wednesday evening, four days before the opening-day team time trial, with Iniesta speaking on stage alongside star rider Biniam Girmay, team director Sam Bewley, and Stoneweb Group's CEO Jaume Sabater.

Iniesta spoke about his adoration of cycling as he fielded the majority of the questions, in English and Spanish, to a packed room of international, but mostly local, media, with the World Cup an unavoidable topic before Spain's round of 32 match against Austria on Thursday.

"I think both [cycling and football] are very similar, but I think cycling is tougher," said Iniesta.

"They have millimetres, seconds can be the difference, and I was very impressed when I was in La Volta a Catalunya. I was with them in the bus, looking at what they had to do during the rides, all the stages, and I was very, very impressed with how they are working.

"For me, it's so nice to be with them in this amazing project, and of course, for me also, I can learn from them, because I love sports. I love cycling. I love football. We are ready to start this race."

Speaking in a broken third language, Iniesta didn't go too deep into the financial differences between the two sports he is involved in – having last month become the head coach of Dubai-based Gulf United FC – instead saying NSN is more interested in creating a project which fans will get behind than focusing on money.

"The people who know how is the economics, or with the sponsors, they know better than me, but from our side, we try to create the values of our team," said the 42-year-old.

"For that, I think the fans can love our team; it's not only about money, I know the money is very important for all, but we are trying to make something special."

Girmay's own footballing background

While Inietsa will of course be keeping an eye on the likes of Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappe and former teammate Lionel Messi – all of whom he was asked about on Wednesday – until the final on July 19, he will also be honed into the movements of Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and his team's star, Girmay.

Girmay spoke openly about some of the factors which had held him to a winless 2025 season, including slower tyres, but has shown signs of his world-beating best again this year since joining NSN, winning three times in Valenciana, Almeria, and at the Baloise Belgium Tour last month.

With football royalty alongside him, Girmay was asked about swapping football for cycling as a child and the path that led him to take. A history maker in cycling and one of the top sprinters in the world, the Eritrean said he had no regrets about that decision.

"It's two different things, you know. At that time, actually, I was young, I was playing football at 11 and 12 years old, and I was good at it, but at the same time, I think maybe here they don't know, in Eritrea, cycling is bigger, so yeah, I decided to change sport," said Girmay.

"I'm happy to be a cyclist, and actually I achieved my dreams, because that's what I dreamed of when I was a kid, and I don't have any regrets. I'm just happy I changed to cycling."

Girmay will be the primary hope for NSN as the Tour unfolds, hoping to repeat his hat-trick heroics and green jersey triumph from the 2024 edition of the race, but he'll likely have to wait at least five days until he gets a chance to sprint after the tough Catalan start and early entry to the Pyrenees.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Here we go! July is here and therefore it's time for the Tour de France, the biggest race of our sport, a huge moment for Cyclingnews and a chance to witness the most intense, most prestigious and most emotional racing of the season.

I always consider it a privilege to be at the Tour de France as a journalist for Cyclingnews and I'm happy to already be in Barcelona for the Grand Départ countdown before the race begins on Saturday.

I'll be with James Moultrie for the first half of the Tour, before handing over to Deputy Editor Patrick Fletcher and Alasdair Fotheringham. Tech writers Josh Croxton and Tom Wieckowski are also here in Barcelona for Cyclingnews, reporting on all the latest bikes and equipment that will be used.

We know that Tadej Pogačar is the huge favourite to win a record-equalling fifth Tour. Fortunately for us, the Tour never turns out as predicted, someone always rips up the script, excels or fails dramatically. That is the beauty of elite sport.

I can't wait to get up so close to the riders and racing to try to question, capture and analyse every moment, every detail and every emotion for the Cyclingnews readers and subscribers.

This is what I hope to witness at the 2026 Tour de France.

Can anyone challenge or even stop Pogačar's greatness?

Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard have dominated the GC battle in the five editions of the Tour but my cycling sixth sense, which I have learnt to listen to carefully, is telling me that things could be different this year.

If Pogačar dominates yet again, we will have to recognise his greatness. He seems in great form, even after racing relatively little since the Classics, but I sense that he will have to fight like never before to pull on the final yellow jersey in Paris.

I think Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike will find some chinks in Pogačar's armour and perhaps be able to take advantage of them. Isaac del Toro will have to play a vital role helping Pogačar, as he also learns how to become a Tour leader in his own right.

If Pogačar and Vingegaard focus too much on each other, then any of Paul Seixas, Juan Ayuso, Remco Evenpeoel and Florian Lipowitz could have a chance to fight for more than third place on the podium. I hope they are ambitious enough to grasp every opportunity.

Allez Paul Seixas!

The presence of 19-year-old Paul Seixas changes everything at this year's Tour and allows the French, and so anyone who loves the race, a chance to dream.

Seixas appears to have the talent to win the Tour. It might not be this year but it seems destined to happen sooner or later, perhaps in the post-Pogačar era or perhaps even sooner.

Seixas' debut Tour will be a journey of discovery for the French teenager and a journey of expectation for all of us. He said he hopes to be a factor in the race, to continue improving and to enjoy himself. That last goal is surely the most important. If Seixas enjoys himself, embraces the pressure and suffering of the Tour, his race will be a success.

Fearing the wrath of Remco

I've felt the wrath of Remco Evenepoel several times, when he vents his frustration towards the Tour media beyond the finish line, but I love his intelligence, intensity and self belief. He gives his absolute all and so rightly demands the same from his team and anyone that comes close to him.

Can he ever win the Tour de France? Perhaps not but that is not going to stop him trying and so it's going to be fascinating to watch him try this year.

The battle for stage victories and the early yellow jersey

The Pogačar-Vingegaard dominance of the Tour GC has forced a lot of other teams to pivot away from riding for the yellow jersey and instead chase stage victories, other classifications and perhaps an early spell in yellow. EF Education-EasyPost executed that strategy well in 2025, with Ben Healy wearing yellow for two days and winning a stage. It was enough to justify their sponsorship for the whole season.

A stage victory has become a stated goal, with rider selections and race strategies built around it. Tour stage wins can be as prestigious and as difficult as winning a major Classic. Win one and a team's tour is deemed a success, fail and the team manager will not be happy.

This year Ben Healy, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), new French national champion Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ United), Filippo Ganna (Netcompany Ineos), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla), Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) and Fred Wright (Pinarello-Q36.5) will all battle for stage on hilly stages, with a similar quality of riders for more mountainous stages.

Every stage will start with an intense battle to get in the break, raise the average speed and intensity, with a chance of taking the yellow day for an early spell as an extra incentive.

Personally, I'd love to see a French rider wear yellow when the Tour crosses the Pyrénées from Spain into France or on Bastille Day on July 14.

Spare a thought for the forgotten sprinters

With so many riders and teams chasing sprint victories and the likes of Pogačar hogging the spotlight, the sprinters have become the forgotten riders of the Tour de France. I hope that will change at this year's Tour.

The sprinters will have to suffer in silence in the opening team time trial and even on Sunday's hilly finish on Montjuïc. They will probably have to wait until stage 5 to Pau for a chance to sprint for victory but in theory there are five sprint chances plus the last stage to Paris if the sprinters can digest the climbs of Montmartre.

Sprint stages can be long days in the saddle and so make for boring television but I believe the thrills of the final kilometres are always worth the wait.

My stand-out stages

Each of the 21 stages will offer some drama and great racing but these are the stages that I'm especially excited about.

Stage 1: Barcelona TTT – The new TT format makes this a GC day and so we can expect time gaps, surprises and disappointment.

I'll be watching to see if Evenepoel drops Lipowitz, how much time Pogačar gains on Vingegaard and Kévin Vauquelin's hot take reaction about his teammates beyond the finish line.

Stage 6: Pau-Gavarnie-Gèdre – The Pyrenees come early this year and avoid some of the legendary climbs but stage 6 includes the Col du Tourmalet and a climb to the finish.

Stage 9: Aurillac-Le Lioran – Stages through the Massif Central are never easy. With the canicule heat expected to return to France next week, this stage could see some GC action as well as a big breakaway.

Stages 19 and 20 – The final mountain stages in the Alps climb to L'Alpe d'Huez twice, first via the iconic hairpins and then via the steeper, lesser known Col de Sarenne.

I'd love to be a fan staying in L'Alpe d'Huez for several days, riding the high mountains and then watching the riders close up from the roadside as they race for overall victory or just survival inside the time limit.

After all, the Tour de France is the ultimate free sporting show. Vive le Tour!

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Former US professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton will cover the Tour de France this month for Denmark's national television network, TV2. It is a second consecutive year the former CSC rider has provided post-race analysis.

Hamilton is recognised by Danish sports viewers for his two years at the CSC team, led by Bjarne Riis, and his overall victory at Tour of Denmark in 1999.

"Denmark has a special place in my heart. It was super special for me last year," he said to Sports.tv2.dk, which will air his reports.

Hamilton, now 55 and living in Missoula, Montana, began his race career in 1994 and went on to win stages at the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, as well as finishing third overall at the Giro in 2002. He raced all three Grand Tours, last competing at an eighth Tour de France in 2004.

His career was derailed when he failed doping tests in 2004 from the Olympic Games and the Vuelta a Espana, resulting in a two-year suspension. He returned to racing from 2007 to 2009, and was subsequently retired a final time when he failed another test for banned substances.

"His past is well known and should not be ignored. At the same time, he is one of the former riders who has chosen to come forward and speak openly about that period," said Kristian Bech Josefsen, editor-in-chief at TV 2 Sport.

"He has experienced both the sport's greatest triumphs and its most controversial chapters. This gives him a unique experience and insight into the Tour de France. Our job is to gather the strongest voices, and he adds another dimension to our coverage – as we saw last year."

Crusher in the Tushar cancelled due to concerns related to ravaging Utah fires

July 11 would have been the 15th edition of the climbing-heavy 69.9-mile gravel race, starting and ending in Beaver, Utah. Instead, event owners and operators, Life Time, cancelled the event two weeks prior to race weekend over safety concerns and limited resources related to a large wildfire in that region of southern Utah.

The Cottonwood Fire had destroyed more than 70,000 acres at the time of the cancellation, and by July 1 had grown to be the state's largest wildfire with only 5% containment, according to local media reports, including ABC4 in Utah.

"After closely monitoring the Cottonwood Fire and its impact on Beaver, Eagle Point, local emergency resources, and the surrounding community, we have made the difficult decision that Crusher in the Tushar will not take place as planned this year," organisers posted to Instagram on June 25.

"This is not the outcome any of us wanted, but given the ongoing impact of the fire, the strain on local resources and emergency response, and the safety considerations for athletes, volunteers, staff, partners, and the Beaver community, we are confident this is the right decision."

Two years ago Crusher in the Tushar was cancelled because of a similar situation, two wildfires situated across Piute County where the race course passed. The race had been part of the Life Time Grand Prix from 2022-2024.

Organisers were communicating with registered athletes via email. Days after the announcement, the event web site provided a link to an online fundraising campaign, created by the Chamber of Commerce serving Beaver, Iron and Garfield counties, to provide assistance to families and businesses impacted by the disaster.

Comp Edge Racing line up for first-ever international UCI stage race appearance at Sibiu Cycling Tour

Comp Edge Racing makes its first-ever international UCI stage race appearance at the 2026 Sibiu Cycling Tour, July 4-7. The Continental team will be led by Marcis Shelton, silver medalist in the U23 road race at USPro Road Nationals.

The six-rider roster will be filled by US riders Ryan Drummond, Andrew Frank, Luke Walter and Dylan Zakrajsek plus Bermuda's dual road champion Nic Narroway.

Among the competition are two WorldTour squads - UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe - as well as five ProTeams, 13 other Continental teams and national teams representing Hungary and Romania.

Modern Adventure Pro Cycling brings a lineup with Canadian Riley Pickrell, who won stage 1 last year at the stage race with Israel-Premier Tech, and Briton Leo Hayter, while Continental-level APS Pro Cycling by Team Cadence Cycling features US riders Ethan Dunham and Patrick Welch.

The four-day race across Romania includes five stages, with Saturday's double billing starting in the centre of the country in Sibiu with a 110.5km road stage followed by a 32.km individual time trial.

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The route for the queen stage of the 2026 Tour de France was struck by two separate mudslides in the past week, raising concerns that stage 20 may have to be re-routed if unpredictable storms continue.

A recent severe heat wave sparked strong thunderstorms near Alpe d'Huez, with heavy rain causing a mudslide last week on the road to the Col de Sarenne.

Just days after crews cleared the rocks and mud from the road, another mudslide struck on Monday on , with the local weather service Météo Oisans posting images of the aftermath on social media.

Riders are due to ascend the Col de Sarenne on stage 20 of the Tour de France on July 25, the second of back-to-back summit to finish atop Alpe d'Huez this year. A week before the Tour passes the area, thousands of recreational riders will use this same route for L'Etape du Tour de France on July 19.

Environmental groups have already protested the inclusion of the Col de Sarenne due to its location next to a nature preserve and its fragile ecosystem.

While road crews have more than two weeks to remove rock and debris and repair any damage, severe thunderstorms remain on the forecast for the coming week.

The Tour de France was heavily impacted by severe storms and landslides in 2019. Stage 19 had to be halted due to debris blocking the route to Val d'Isere while eventual overall winner Egan Bernal was on the attack on the nearby Col de l'Iseran.

Then, the following day's stage was cut to just 59 kilometres after another landslide blocked the Cormet Roselend.

The organisers are also concerned about a repeat of a deadly June heat wave across Western Europe saw temperatures soaring as high as 43°C (109°F).

"This is a subject that greatly concerns us [Tour de France organisers]. It's not the first year we've faced this issue, but this time it's even more pressing because we've already just gone through two difficult periods (in May and June)," the Tour's technical director Thierry Gouvenou told L'Equipe on Tuesday.

"In recent years, we've opened the feed zone from kilometer zero to the finish line and extended the elimination time limits. For years, we've also provided refreshment motorcycles that bring drinks to the riders, especially those in breakaways."

Extreme heat has caused dangerous conditions several times over the last 23 years, creating punishing situations for riders and melting tarmac, which, in the 2003 Tour de France, led to Joseba Beloki famously crashing on a descent on a stage to Gap. Melting pavement was also an issue a few years later on the descent from the Col du Galibier.

In 2022, stage 15 was held as planned in 40°C temperatures, with riders being allowed extended feeding from team cars and a more generous time limit.

Just three days ago the hot weather in France caused the country's cycling federation to shorten the elite men's road race national championship, eliminating one lap from the planned 241-kilometre competition.

The UCI created protocols for extreme weather in 2015, and two years ago updated the guidelines for heat, which include air temperature, humidity and solar radiation. A colour code is used to signal risks, with red noting the highest risk and organisers. At this level, they are advised to modify start or finish times, neutralise racing or cancel all or part of a stage.

But with the Tour's start in Spain this year for the first three days, some modifications may not be possible.

"We must understand that 28,000 police officers, firefighters, and gendarmes are mobilized and that we're not at home on the roads. Authorizations are granted for a specific time. These aren't things that can be done at the last minute," Tour Director Christian Prudhomme told AFP, which was reported by L'Equipe. "You can shorten the route by fifteen kilometers or start half an hour earlier. But that's only done in exceptional circumstances."

Temperatures in the Barcelona area are expected to reach highs of 33°C this weekend, which is hot but not extreme. It should be hotter across the next two weeks into the Alps, with temperatures reaching 37°C or higher at the end the first week on stage 9.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Biniam Girmay is confident he can return to his Tour de France sprinting success of 2024, believing his speed, lead-out, the race route and even his tyres are all in his favour this year.

Girmay moved from Intermarché-Wanty to NSN during the winter as the Belgian team merged with Lotto, and Spanish footballer Andrés Iniesta and global investment platform Stoneweg co-founded the NSN team after the acquisition and rebrand of the troubled Israel-Premier Tech team.

Girmay won three stages and the green points jersey in 2024 but didn't win all season in 2025, his best result a second place in Lille on the opening day of the Tour de France. He has not won a WorldTour race since the 2024 Tour but showed a flash of his speed and NSN's leadout ability by beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) at the recent Baloise Belgium Tour.

He wasn't afraid to lay the blame on Intermarché for his lack of success on his former teams, and even their tyres.

"I have stronger teammates and a stronger leadout," he said at NSN's special team event in a central Barcelona hotel, with team owner Iniesta sitting alongside him.

"The equipment is more or less the same, but we do have better tyres. I mention this because I didn't have the best tyres last year. As a bike rider, the tyres are really important because that's how you connect to the tarmac. So we have good tyres, and so that's why my results are better this year than in 2025."

Girmay has Jake Stewart as his new leadout man, with Lewis Askey, Tom Van Asbroeck, and Matis Louvel all part of the sprint lead and protection train. The NSN Tour selection also includes Krists Neilands, George Bennett, and debutant Marco Frigo, who will have freedom to fight for stage wins in the hills and mountains.

"Everybody's in top shape; that also makes a big difference, because as a team, we need to have everybody at the same level at the same time. We saw that in the last couple of days we raced together. That's good confidence. So let's hope we continue like that for the next 21 days."

NSN sports director Sam Bewley sees five or six sprint opportunities once the Tour completes the stages in Catalunya and crosses the Pyrenees into France.

Stage 5 to Pau is expected to be the first sprint finish of the 2026 Tour de France.

"We have big dreams: to win a stage and then also try to win the green jersey. This year, we have really strong teammates compared to the past three years. I'm super happy and super motivated to start here in Barcelona," Girmay, not afraid to use his elbows against his former teams as if he was fighting in a sprint finish.

"My best performance in the sprints was in 2024, when we started in Italy. We had some really hot and super hard stages. That hurt the heavier guys more than me, and I could handle the heat, too. Maybe I'll have a similar benefit this year, with the start in Barcelona and in the heat. This year's race route design could be good for me and allow me to do my best sprints."

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Tom Pidcock was confirmed today as the Pinarello-Q36.5 leader on the ProTeam's debut at the 2026 Tour de France. The team announced a versatile lineup of Grand Tour veterans for the three weeks of racing, beginning Saturday in Barcelona, including 2025 Giro d'Italia stage winner Chris Harper and five-time Tour starter Fred Wright, recently striking for the British National Road Race win.

The team's approach to grasp advantages across any type of stage, and the GC, was defined as "simple, we'll race proactively".

"We come with a group that combines experience, versatility and the mindset we want to race with. Our approach is simple, we’ll race proactively, look for opportunities every day and make sure we’re present throughout all three weeks," Team Principal Douglas Ryder said in a team roster announcement.

"From day one, the Tour de France has been a clear objective for this project. To now be on the start line is an important step, but more importantly, it reflects the consistency of the work that’s gone into building this team.

"Being here is significant, but for us it’s not an end point. It’s another step in the progression of the team."

While Pidcock may be the youngest of the eight riders, he is by no means short on experience as he makes a fourth appearance at the Grand Boucle. As a 22-year-old four years ago, the Briton won a signature Tour victory on the Alpe d'Huez climb, stamping his name in the history books as well as on one of the signs adorning each of the 21 hairpin turns of the ascent.

It has been two years since his last start at the Tour and he returns as a Vuelta a España GC medalist, last year becoming the first rider for a wildcard team to earn a podium at a Grand Tour in 15 years. The team adjusted his calendar when he missed part of an altitude training camp last month due to a viral infection, switching a start at the Tour of Switzerland for the one-day Andorra MoraBanc Classica. In his only June competition, he won.

Six of the other seven riders have all competed at least once in the Tour de France in their careers, Spanish rider Xabier Mikel Azparren being the only Tour debutant.

Australians Harper and Damien Howson have the most Grand Tour experience, with eight and 12 appearances, respectively. Harper will be a key climber at his third Tour, having won the Sestriere stage at last year's Tour for Jayco-AlUla. This year he posted a top 10 at the Tour of the Alps and top 20 at the Giro for his new squad.

The rest of the roster includes Quinten Hermans, Xandro Meurisse, Bernt Van Moer and Wright. All eight will take the stage at the Team Presentation Thursday evening in Barcelona sporting the new switch-out light gray and blue racing kit created especially for the Tour.

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Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling for 2026 Tour de France

• Chris Harper (Aus)
• Quinten Hermans (Bel)
• Damien Howson (Aus)
• Xandro Meurisse (Bel)
• Xabier Mikel Azparren (Esp)
• Brent Van Moer (Bel)
• Tom Pidcock (GBr)
• Fred Wright (GBr)

Five-time Tour de France champion Miguel Indurain warned that breakthrough French star Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) could be able to challenge for the race, although Indurain remained cautious about when exactly that might happen.

Speaking after a homage to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of his 1996 Olympic Games gold medal in Atlanta in the elite men's time trial, Indurain told reporters about the 19-year-old Frenchman: "He's got the legs to go for a Tour."

However, Indurain did not specify whether he meant the 2026 Tour or later in the young rider's pro career. Induráin himself first raced in the Tour de France in 1985, aged 20, but he did not win a Tour until 1991 when he was 27.

"He's a bit young to be fighting for a Grand Tour," said Induráin, who held the record as the youngest-ever leader of the Vuelta a España at 20, "but that's sport for you.

"Young riders are coming on more and more quickly. He'll have all of France rooting for him. Let's see how he handles that pressure. We'll see, but he's got the legs to go for a Tour."

Indurain acknowledged that Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was the standout favourite to join himself, Anquetil, Hinault and Merckx as five-time Tour winners, although Indurain was, and would remain, the only rider to have won five Tours in succession, from 1991 to 1995.

"His morale is really strong and his team's morale is, too," Induráin insisted. "These days, in sport, everybody's at the same level physically. What changes things is who's got the best morale and who's feeling most at ease. You can tell that Pogačar enjoys what he does.

"However, he's got to get through the Tour. There are always ambushes, setbacks, difficult situations. His rivals will be waiting to catch him out, although in difficult situations, he's been able to solve things very well.

"He's courageous, aggressive, getting a great palmares which could include the fifth this year," Indurain told MARCA. "Each year, though, it's going to be a bit harder for him, because there are younger riders coming through all the time."

Enter Juan Ayuso

One of those younger riders, at least hypothetically, would be Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), currently Spain's biggest hope to return to the podium of the Tour de France for the first time since 2015.

"Changing teams always unsettles you a little, and he's had something of a complicated year. Let's see if, in terms of morale above all, he's got that self-confidence he needs."

The days of the enormous Tour de France time trials of the 1990s of 60 kilometres or more when Indurain was ruling the roost in the contra-relojs have long since passed into race history. Albeit with an occasional spike in the distances, the general trend is for them to be increasingly shorter, something Indurain says he understands in terms of social media but regrets all the same.

."Time trialling is for cycling fans, but TV viewing figures are always what count, and these days, a lot of viewers like the spectacular [non-TT] stages," Indurain pointed out.

"Time trials still count for something, but less and less so as they keep getting shorter. And it's the audience viewing shares that really count."

Of the three opening Tour stages in Catalunya, Indurain said he had not studied the route in detail, but perhaps predictably for a former time trial expert, he opted for stage 1's TTT as the most challenging and important.

"Stage 2 up from Tarragona to Barcelona will be tricky with so many small climbs and the risk of wind off the coast, while the Pyrenees likely won't be too hard, coming so soon in the race.

"But a stage 1 TTT is always going to be tough, you've got to look after your leader and make sure he doesn't lose time and above all it's the first day of the race," Indurain said. "That's going to be difficult."

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Geraint Thomas appeared to have a few extra grey hairs as he discussed Netcompany Ineos' Tour de France team selection and their hopes and ambitions. The loss of GC leader Oscar Onley has sparked a long debate about race strategy and some tough selection decisions.

The British super team signed Onley from Picnic PostNL during the winter after he finished fourth overall in the 2025 Tour. He appeared to be gradually building his form during the spring but crashed hard and suffered a "significant shoulder injury" at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

The loss of Onley forced Netcompany to pivot to targeting stage victories, with a good GC result with Egan Bernal, Thymen Arensman and Kévin Vauquelin as a possible consequence.

Also in the eight-rider roster are Tobias Foss, Filippo Ganna, Dorian Godon, Michal Kwiatkowski and Josh Tarling.

Tarling has apparently recovered from a fractured collarbone at Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and will play a role in targeting Saturday's opening team time trial but the roster change in objectives meant that Carlos Rodríguez was left at home.

"From the start of the year he was our GC guy," Thomas said of Onley.

"As soon as that [crash] happened, it was disappointing but you need to dust yourself off and look forward. You can't wallow in what could have been or what should have been. We have to look forward and make our new objectives, a new plan.

"Losing Oscar does change our plans. The GC isn't like a single focus, which for this team it has been for a number of years. But there are numerous ways to race a GC. You can sit in there and you can follow and lose a bit of time every day or you can just throw a bit caution to the wind and go after it and go for stages. We've seen numerous times that guys have also moved up in the GC via breakaways.

"It's a combination of being realistic but also really ambitious and wanting to go after it every day, and really get stuck into the race. We want to give the boys the freedom to express themselves, to race their bikes and enjoy it, and really make things happen, rather than just be sitting back and letting things happen to them."

Thomas will not measure Netcompany's success in stage results, acknowledging that the 2026 Tour is now some kind of 'year zero' as he and team manager Dave Brailsford try to create a new cycle of Tour de France success in the years to come.

"Without sounding a bit wishy washy, I think it's about how the boys race and how they gel and build and work together and look into the future," Thomas said.

"There's a core team here that will continue on. We've got ambitions to win this race in the near future and a lot of these boys are gonna be key to that.

"To stand here and say three stage wins would be a success, would be wrong. Obviously, we'd love to win as much as we can. It's just about how we race, how we represent ourselves."

"When you don't have an out and out favourite for the GC, it definitely means you race differently and that's exciting as well. I think having that freedom gives a lot of motivation to all the boys. We're all just excited about getting going."

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

When Lenny Martinez was asked over the winter what advice he'd give compatriot Paul Seixas about how to handle a sharply increasing weight of expectations this year – and now in the Tour de France – he barely had to think twice.

"I'd tell him not to listen too much or too hard to what the outside world is saying," the Bahrain Victorious racer said. "Never go on social media and start reading what the people are saying; think about yourself and what you like as a racer; don't get hung up about things.

"If you can win - great; if not, then, so be it. And finally, don't get pulled in too many different directions at the same time."

That Martinez knows what he is talking about is obvious: just a few years ago, he was being held up by home fans as France's next big hope to re-conquer the Tour and put the host nation back at the top of the cycling world.

Now that unofficial role, and all the stress that goes with it, is centering much more on Seixas. However, no matter who the star that gets put on a pedestal, the issues that lie beneath it about managing expectations remain the same. And as top riders get younger and younger, it becomes increasingly important to ensure they have the right strategies and the right protection from their teams to shield them from excessive pressure.

Asked what his favourite tactic is to avoid getting overwhelmed, Martinez says, "Motivation is my biggest resource. If I'm motivated and the team has lots of faith in me, whatever happens, that helps me to do better.

"They tell me to do the best I can, and if I don't get the win, then that's just how it is. Then if I do win, then so much the better."

Given Martinez is only 22 and set for the Tour de France for a third time this year, he recognises his squad offers him a lot of critical support in handling those expectations. And so, too, does teammate Antonio Tiberi, another key young hopeful who will carry a lot of Italy's expectations on his shoulders this July.

"The thing I need the most from a team is tranquillity. If they transmit calm, if they show they believe in you, that's the most important thing, because then when you have that mental stability as your base, you perform much better," Tiberi tells Cyclingnews.

"When your work is valued, and the technical support is there as well, it automatically allows you to boost your performance level. It makes you think as clearly and as well as possible. It helps the team stay calm as well.

"So the team has to give you a lot, but you have to remember to give back something to them as well. It's always 50-50."

A two-way street between rider and team

If handling that two-way street of communication and mutual confidence-building between team and rider is increasingly important, that's where a staff member like Bahrain Victorious performance manager Rod Ellingworth can be key. And having taken on similar responsibilities at Ineos, Sky and British Cycling beforehand, Ellingworth recognises that keeping the younger riders like Martinez and Tiberi free from excessive expectations and pressure currently forms a critical part of his job.

"For one thing, I don't allow any outside influence to affect me at all," Ellingworth says when asked to explain how he walks the fine line between keeping the pressure at bay, but not getting the riders to sleep on their laurels, either. (He too – and it's surely no coincidence – is a keen believer of Martinez's recommendation of not following social media at all.)

"All I'm interested in is encouraging the team around me, the staff, coaches and sports directors to do their absolute best to support the bike riders, so that's one part of the job. Are we doing our best with what we've got? Do we wake up every day and do our best? Yes or no?

"Then the other side of the job is to get the riders into a position where they understand what's expected of them, so they understand what it's going to take, they understand the gaps that they have now to where they want to be.

"After that, then it's about the negotiation of 'What's it going to take you? What's going to stop you from being able to achieve that goal?'"

Originally brought in by Bahrain to work most closely with Martinez, who feels he has benefited from their relationship – "He sees lots of things I don't," Martinez says – Ellingworth took on a much broader role at the team at the end of 2025 to handle a lot more of the performance side. Since then, he's been heavily involved in the process of establishing clear expectations without overstating them.

In the case of Bahrain, that began back at the first training camp for 2026, when the entire squad spent what Ellingworth calls "a massive session" regarding the country's reasons for sponsoring the team.

"When you look at what the sponsors value, it's things like the WorldTour rankings so you can't ignore that, either, and it helps guide us a little bit on what the expectations will be and how to tackle the season," Ellingworth says.

Then it comes to the biggest target of them all, the Tour de France. Ellingworth says that with someone like Tiberi or Martinez, part of handling the pressure in July is not even in the race: riders will manage it better if they have gone for other goals beforehand. And that strategy helps keep the team on their toes as well.

"It's not like, we're just gonna aim for the Tour de France, and that's it, and you get there, you crash, and you have nothing for the season," he explains.

"No, it's like from day one, come on, bang, let's go. Let's get racing. At the end of the day, we're a bike racing team, nothing else. More than numbers or the training, we're a bike racing team, and that's what we've got to do."

'A lot of people do the talk, but it's about the action you take'

Yet if Ellingworth is working on both keeping pressure at bay and helping riders achieve their goals, it might surprise some to hear that an important component of his management of those processes is by not being lax about discipline, either.

It's true that Ellingworth was also once famous back in the 2000s when he was running the British Cycling Academy for overseeing its notoriously tough 'boot camps' for young riders barely in their twenties. But whilst not intended to heighten the pressure, as Ellingworth explains, both now and back then, "The riders also set their own consequences. They signed up for it. They knew exactly what it was about."

Woe betide anybody turning up late for training rides, then, which has exactly the same consequences at Bahrain as it did back at the Academy training camp. The team, having warned the riders, will leave without whoever fails to be punctual.

"There's no bullshit in that, is there?" Ellingworth replies rhetorically when Cyclingnews asks whether he still stands by the same principles as back in the early noughties, in general, and that rule in particular.

"It's more about just setting expectations. I've been talking a lot about that with the riders, and I've been telling them – have some high standards for yourself. Set some rules and then let's just go for it, because if we're talking, a lot of people do the talk, but it's about the action you take."

Back at the Academy, Ellingworth says, "They were a group of young men you'd got to whip into shape a little bit. There's got to be some discipline within it.

"Here they're a little bit older, but there are still rules, and they'll still abide by the Bahrain Victorious way of doing things."

He gives a couple of examples where he pulled riders aside during a training ride and said: "Come on, tell me why you're doing that, I don't agree with it." One during what was supposedly a 15-minute all-out effort: "One rider comes past me, and he's got his phone out."

"I mean, they're all capable of doing an effort and looking at something on their Garmin, but this guy had his phone out. Well, he explained to me what had happened, and I go 'Yeah, I get it'. But I said I wanted to know and I brought him up.

"I didn't just sit and bypass it and think 'Oh well, it doesn't matter'. It does fucking matter. Because it's about applying yourself, and also – all these lads on their phones, all the time. It's like, no. Have a standard."

Yet it is always a two-way street for Ellingworth, to the point where he handed out an anonymous questionnaire this winter to the team's riders. "Because I want them to know what the direction is, and I want them to be part of the decision going forward. I want them to feel happy and comfortable enough to give me that honest feedback."

This year's Tour de France

On a specific level with Martinez, Ellingworth says, the raw material he had already shown huge potential. The Frenchman joined the squad at the beginning of 2025; he impressed with his level of progression, particularly how the young Frenchman won races in three different ways. That versatility "showed that he's a real winner, and he's got that killer instinct." But Ellingworth was also impressed by Martinez's willingness to move into a completely new kind of team.

"We were really happy with how he integrated. If you think that he's been with French teams his whole career before that, then he had the guts to come out of that and go into a very international team where of our 28 riders, we've got 16 different nationalities. And in 119 staff, there's 26 nationalities too. I don't know if there's a more international team," he says.

"For me year one was just about getting wins on the board as early as you can, but understanding the team as well. Yet also [before Bahrain] he said he's never had anybody talking to him about performance planning, all the 'how do you get the best out of yourself, how do you take the team with you' and so on.

"Slowly but surely he's getting it, but it takes time, doesn't it? And progression is just taking all that to another level."

So Martinez has shone in a lot of levels in 2026, yet while Ellingworth says he's hoping for a stage in the Tour de France this year, to call last year's Tour performance erratic would be no understatement. Dead last on stage 1 into Lille, Martinez slowly turned things around in the days and weeks to come, and that, Ellingworth says, is what makes him optimistic about the young racer for 2026.

"The first stage of the Tour, he was in pieces. He was just not on it, and it was not physical, purely a young man sort of trying to find his way through life a little bit. Looking at him, a French rider going into the Tour, there were five or six things you'd put together and go 'OK, there you go, you understand why. So God, yeah, he took a hiding at the Tour the first few days, but it just shows you his strength.

"OK, we didn't win a stage. But he bounced back in some areas; he made mistakes in others. I said to him, 'You can't fail here, maybe it looks like you're failing to the public, but in terms of your experience, it's invaluable, isn't it?' I think it's his time in his career where he's learning about who he is, what he can do."

When it comes to Tiberi, already much better established in the GC targets and with a hugely impressive win and spell in the lead at the UAE Tour this spring, Ellingworth is equally sure of his possibilities in his Tour debut this summer.

"For now, Antonio, it's up to him. He's got the potential, it's all there. He finished fifth in the Giro, so he knows how to survive the three weeks. We're all here to support him, and it's up to him to now really commit to this and show that it's not just potential, there's actually something in there. And I think he's capable of that," Eliingworth says.

"I had a tough year, a special one, in 2025, lots of highs and lows, and I didn't have the feeling I had in previous years," Tiberi says.

"There were some good moments like in Tirreno and the Tour de Pologne, but then in the big objectives of the Giro, where I crashed, and the Vuelta, where I was sick, I couldn't perform as I wanted to.

"Fortunately, I learned to handle this to take things as calmly as possible, try to be up there as much as I could and not make too many mistakes. So that was what gave me more courage and determination to look at 2026 with more willpower."

If it sounds as if Tiberi is more sure of himself, he, like Martinez, warns against the dangers of listening too much to over-expectations, but in this case, Tiberi warns against the riders themselves getting too ambitious, too soon and putting themselves under too much pressure.

"It's not easy. You need to be a bit diplomatic and sometimes you are scared to express yourself too much, then you could get criticised or attacked, about what the objectives are, and sometimes for not getting them. Of course you want to do the best work possible, but obviously, we're all human, too; we can have problems," he says.

"We're doing a sport where you have to be at 100% to get your objectives, so it's normal that thousands of things can affect you. A normal person gets a cold, for example, and that's it, but in our case it affects your oxygen intake. So even if it's just five per cent, that five per cent is what, in battles like ours, can make all the difference."

As for the rider with a key position in Bahrain's Tour hopes and coming back to the pressure he and Seixas now feel in France, Martinez says simply "I do what I can." But he also points out that he has faced an ever-rising tide of expectations.

"People always want more and more. But if you do achieve more, then people always act surprised and say 'What could he do on top of that?' Anyway, I know I have to concentrate on myself and not look at others.

"I learn more from victories, because you gain in confidence. When I took a stage win like in Paris-Nice last year, for example, then I knew I could do more. Each time you win something, you realise it's something more you can do."

And be it Paris-Nice or the Tour de France, that's as true in one race as it is in any other.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Despite breaking his collarbone in a nasty crash at the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes just 19 days ago, Josh Tarling has miraculously recovered in time to make his debut at the Tour de France, saying on Wednesday that he is "back to normal."

Tarling was revealed as part of Netcompany Ineos' eight-man stage-hunting squad four days prior to the Grand Départ in Barcelona, despite his recent injury placing those plans into serious doubt.

He crashed on stage 6 of the renamed Dauphiné on June 12 after impressing in the team time trial and being part of that day's breakaway, but after a rapid surgery turnaround, he was cleared to start, and is fairly certain everything is back on track.

Speaking to international media on Wednesday, Tarling said his recovery "was pretty good, mate, to be honest," in his typical laid-back style, sitting slightly off-screen as Netcompany Ineos presented their eight riders for questions over a video call.

"I went straight to Germany to get it pinned, so it was nice and strong straight away," Tarling explained.

"Then I could go back to [camp] with everybody, obviously a couple of days on the turbo, but yeah, I'm back to normal really, maybe a bit less on the TT bike than I would have done, but to be honest it's been pretty smooth, physio and all that stuff."

Recovery time for a fractured clavicle is typically six to twelve weeks, so with Tarling feeling "normal" after just three, it's nothing short of a remarkable recovery. But he isn't the first rider to manage something exactly like this.

Just a season ago, it looked as though rotten luck had come at the worst time for Jonas Abrahamensen (Uno-X Mobikity), who broke his collarbone on stage 1 of the Baloise Belgium Tour on June 18 and looked set to miss the start of the Tour on July 5.

With even less time to recover than Tarling, Abrahamsen went on to make the start, ride an incredible race as one of the key breakaway animators, and win stage 11 in Toulouse less than a month after his injury. Tarling has the example to follow, and he will be just as key to Ineos' ambitions, especially in the absence of GC star Oscar Onley, and with a team built around aggressive stage-hunting.

Tarling may be lacking his full 100% form, but as one of the best time trial riders in the world, his efforts could still prove vital to the opening day team time trial in Barcelona and the race for the first yellow jersey, where Ineos will be eyeing top spot.

Alongside him in the engine room will be two former individual time trial world champions, Filippo Ganna and Tobias Foss, with more power being provided by Thymen Arensman, Dorian Godon, GC leader Kévin Vauquelin, with the Tour experience of Egan Bernal and Michał Kwiatkowski to boot.

"I’m just super happy and really looking forward to it," said Tarling on the team's website. "We’ve got a power team so I’m really excited with the team that we have for the TT and stages, so we’re going to have a good Tour together."

The Welshman is already a Grand Tour stage winner from the Giro d'Italia in 2025, and this will be the third three-week race appearance of his young career.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Belgian WorldTour squad Lotto-Intermarché will be lacking a key member of their management in the fast-upcoming Tour de France after it was announced this week that their Head of Performance, Aike Visbeek, would be quitting the team, effective immediately.

Visbeek, 49, had been performance manager of the Circus-Wanty-Gobert squad since 2020, and remained in that role once the team, having gained Intermarché as a sponsor, went through a prolonged but finally successful fusion with Lotto at the end of last season.

As reported by Sporza, before his unexpected exit Visbeek had ben instrumental to helping the team take some major triumphs with Biniam Girmay. Prior to leaving for NSN at the end of last season, the Eritrean took multiple stages of the 2024 Tour as well as a stage of the Giro d'Italia as well as Gent-Wevelgem on home soil.

Prior to Circus-Wanty-Gobert, Visbeek worked at Sunweb for seven years as a sports director.

While changes in top managerial positions are far from unusual in cycling's WorldTour, the timing of his exit is striking, given it comes just days before Lotto-Intermarché tackle the top stage racing event of the calendar.

In a statement published on the team's social media, Visbeek said, "It has not been an easy decision, but I look back with great pride on everything we have achieved together.

"I would like to thank Jean-François [Bourlart, team manager] and everyone within the organisation for the trust, collaboration and friendship over the past months and years. I leave knowing the team is well prepared for the future and wish everyone continued success."

"Aike has made a significant contribution to the growth of our team through his vision, expertise and leadership," Bourlart said. "Together with a strong and dedicated performance team, he has helped build an organisation that provides a solid foundation for the future.

"I will always remember the great achievements we shared such as Gent-Wevelgem, as well as the Tour de France stage wins and the Green Jersey or most recently our victory at Eschborn-Frankfurt in May. We sincerely thank Aike for everything he has brought to our sporting and performance project and wish him every success in the next chapter of his career."

While Visbeek's future remains unknown, at least in the short-term, Lotto-Intermarché's next big challenge is the Tour.

In France, the Belgian WorldTour squad will be mainly aiming for stage wins with sprinter Arnaud De Lie. But it will also be eying any chance of breakaway victories with Lennert Van Eetvelt – forced to leave the Giro d'Italia early after breaking a finger, as was De Lie because of sickness – plus Frenchman Baptiste Veistroffer, constantly on the attack this year, and 2026 Eschborn-Frankfurt winner Georg Zimmerman.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

The Tour de France is very nearly upon us, and with the special event that is the biggest race of the year comes special jerseys to mark this momentous occasion.

Some teams in the peloton are obligated to change their jersey if it clashes too much with one of the Tour's distinctive classification jerseys, so as not to cause confusion, and some teams like to switch out their kit just for fun and to celebrate the race.

This year, several teams have already unveiled special kits for the Tour, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe the latest to show off their new look, a twist on their classic white and blue style.

Other teams have gone for designs that pay homage to the Grand Départ in Barcelona, one team debuted their jersey at Paris Fashion Week, and another features a very special dedication to a critically injured teammate.

So that you're not confused when the peloton looks a bit different this weekend in Barcelona, here is our round-up of all the special edition kits we've seen so far.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are celebrating thier 13th appearance at the Tour with a reworked version of their usual kit. The colours and central look are the same, with blue and red on white, but they've changed up the pattern and motifs for a fresh look.

They'll be hoping their new look brings new success as they aim for the podium with Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz.

Visma-Lease a Bike

Visma-Lease a Bike have a special Tour kit every year as their yellow look clashes with the yellow jersey, and this year they held a fan vote to decide if they would wear a light or dark version of this Gaudí-inspired jersey to celebrate the start in Barcelona.

Dark won, so Jonas Vingegaard and co will be wearing the black kit with yellow accents and elemnts of Gaudí's architectural designs.

Movistar

Movistar are another team who are obliged to change their kit as their white jersey is too close to the best young rider jersey, and they've also gone down the Barcelona architecture route.

Their classic blue kit features "shapes, textures and geometries of the Sagrada Família", though it is subtle and you probably wouldn't know it was inspired by that if you hadn't been told.

Jayco AlUla

Jayco AlUla have spiced up their purple Maap kit by adding green flames to the jersey for a real stand-out look that would certainly catch your eye in the bunch.

Like Red Bull, this was just a 'for fun' switch-out rather than mandated by a clash. It also got its debut at Paris Fashion Week.

Pinarello-Q36.5

Pinarello-Q36.5 are making their debut at the Tour de France this year so have gone for a special jersey to commemorate that moment. They've swapped out navy for light grey and pale blue, which will also be a plus for the high temperatures we're expecting in France.

The new colouring is surprisingly close to the Tour's white jersey, but the UCI must have approved this and deemed it not too much of a clash.

Caja Rural-Seguros RGA

Like Pinarello-Q36.5, Caja Rural-Seguros RGA are making their debut in the Tour, albeit after a much, much longer wait as the Spanish team, in their current structure, has been around for nearly two decades.

Their special kit commemorates their long past, harking back to the Caja Rural kit of the 80s - when a completely different version of the team, albeit with the same sponsor, raced the Tour - with a nostalgic and vintage-inspired jersey.

The kit also features the inscription #ForçaJaume, dedicated the Caja Rural rider Jaume Guardeño who is currently in neurological rehab after a horrible crash left him in a coma earlier this year.

National champions

There will also be a whole host of new national champion kits on show after last weekend crowned new titles across Europe and North America.

Here's a list of the new champions expected to be in action at the Tour, and we'll add photos if we get them.

Road champions

• Quinn Simmons (USA)
• Romain Grégoire (Fra)
• Mathias Vacek (Cze)
• Magnus Cort (Den)
• Felix Engelhardt (Ger)
• Fred Wright (GBr)
• Nicolas Vinokourov (Kaz)
• Anders Skaarseth (Nor)

TT champions

• Nils Politt (Ger)
• Filippo Ganna (Ita)
• Mathias Vacek (Cze)
• Michał Kwiatkowski (Pol)
• Pablo Castrillo (Spa)
• Alex Segaert (Bel)
• Felix Großscharter (Aut)
• Derek Gee-West (Can)
• Alex Kirsch (Lux)
• Huub Artz (Ned)
• Tobias Foss (Nor)

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All-time great Eddy Merckx has recognised that top Tour de France contender Tadej Pogačar could soon be joining him, Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil as five-time winners of cycling's biggest bike race.

Merckx, 81, won the Tour himself five times from five participations between 1969 and 1974, with 1973, the year he did not take part, the only time he missed out on victory.

Like Merckx, Pogačar won the Tour on his first-ever participation back in 2020 before triumphing again in 2021, 2024 and 2025.

Only Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) has proved capable of defeating the 27-year-old Slovenian in that period, in 2022 and 2023, and the Dane is hoping to do so again this July.

A keen follower of cycling to this day, the rider they nicknamed 'The Cannibal' has often praised Pogačar and he told Belga this week that while he expects the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader to make much of the running, he feels others will have their chance, too.

“Pogačar is obviously the big favourite, but we still hope it will be an exciting battle. Vingegaard, [Remco] Evenepoel, and [Paul] Seixas are the challengers, although perhaps we shouldn't expect too much from the latter in his first participation at the age of 19,” Merckx said.

“Besides Vingegaard, we saw that Seixas was capable of competing in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Remco, on the other hand, has trained a lot at altitude.”

Whilst Seixas (Decathlon CGA CGM), at 19, is currently the breakthrough name for French cycling, Merckx is also hopeful that a series of new young Belgian names will also make their mark alongside the well-established top stars such as Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep).

As the outstanding favourite, it looks more than likely that Pogačar could secure a place amongst the joint record-holders of five titles. But Merckx predicts that at 27, Pogačar could be set to move into unknown territory and take a sixth.

“Given his qualities, that would be expected, and he is certainly welcome in our club,” Merckx said. “Perhaps he will be the first to add a sixth to his name.”

Merckx himself will not be at the Tour in 2026, as he is recovering from his latest hip operation. Merckx told Belga he is making good progress, but he needed more time before he travelled to the race again. In the meantime, he'll be watching the Tour on television.

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Some editions of the Tour de France mark the start of a new era in the sport, when a new generational talent emerges or years of dominance suddenly end. Tadej Pogačar first made his mark on the Tour de France when he snatched victory from Primoz Roglic in the La Planche des Belle Filles time trial in 2020. In 1986, Greg LeMond ended Bernard Hinault's reign and stopped him from winning a sixth Tour.

Bradley Wiggins was the first British rider to win the Tour de France in 2012, but then Chris Froome did even better in 2013, going on to win the Tour four times. Pogačar is the favourite to win this year's Tour, but there is a sense we are about to see the start of the Paul Seixas era as the 19-year-old French super talent makes his Tour debut, with his potential set to be tested this July.

In 1996, there was a similar moment in cycling history. Miguel Indurain had won five consecutive editions of the Tour but was brutally dethroned by Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich as Team Telekom suddenly became a super team.

In 1997, Ullrich won the Tour, inspiring a boom in German cycling, but then the Festina Affaire exploded in 1998. Marco Pantani won the yellow jersey but then was disqualified from the 1999 Giro d'Italia after failing a UCI haematocrit test. It was the peak of the EPO era. Lance Armstrong transformed into a Tour de France winner and often defeated Ullrich at the Tour before the house of cards collapsed into scandal.

Renowned cycling journalist, television interviewer, and podcaster Daniel Friebe wrote the definitive biography about Ullrich's life and career: Jan Ullrich - The best there never was.

Friebe tells the story of Ullrich's rise from his East German roots, his breakthrough ride at the 1996 Tour alongside Riis, his 1997 Tour victory, and his battles with Pantani and then Armstrong. It also delves deep into Ullrich's links to Dr Fuentes and Operación Puerto, and into his troubled post-racing life that almost ended in self-destruction, before Armstrong helped his rival get his life back together.

"The 1996 Tour was a seismic moment in the sport. We all thought Indurain was invulnerable, and to watch him crack was incredible," Friebe says as he helps Cyclingnews understand the 1996 Tour and the story behind the Team Telekom squad that won the race.

"Few people thought Riis and Telekom would be the ones to win the Tour, but by the time they reached Paris, with Riis first, Ullrich second and Zabel winning the green jersey, Telekom were a big emerging power."

The success, lack of morality and ultimately the downfall of Team Telekom was overseen by Walter Godefroot and Ullrich's mentor and sports director Rudy Pevenage. Both came from the old school of pro racing in Belgium, and both facilitated the work of the doctors and riders to keep the millions flowing from the huge German mobile communications giant.

Riis pulled on the yellow jersey in Paris in July 1996, only to confess to doping a decade later. Many of his Telekom teammates soon did the same, a confession that helped them stay in the sport, but Ullrich held onto his lie for fear of losing his Tour victory. He eventually turned his life around and, in 2023, confessed as part of his rehabilitation.

30 years on from the 1996 Tour de France, Cyclingnews investigates where the Team Telekom riders are today and how their dominance in 1996 subsequently impacted their careers and lives.

Bjarne Riis

Bjarne Riis had already raced for 10 years and was 31 when he joined Telekom for the 1996 season. He had finished third in the 1995 Tour while with Gewiss-Ballan and was determined to complete his transformation from domestique to Grand Tour winner.

Friebe captured Riis' sense of ambition in his book, but also the doubts of his new teammates. "During the pre-season team presentation, Riis told the media: 'I'm going to win the Tour.' The other riders heard from an adjacent room and all burst out laughing," Friebe tells Cyclingnews.

"Riis' self-belief became a running joke on the team in 1996, but he proved to be right."

Indurain's demise in 1996 was a surprise, but it began on stage 7 to Arc 1800. Then Riis famously dropped everyone on stage 16 to Hautacam after slowing to look his rivals in the eye before powering away in a huge gear. Ullrich pulled back two minutes on Riis in the final Bordeaux time trial and finished 1:41 behind in Paris. He was a loyal teammate, and his Tour victory would come in 1997.

11 years later, Riis confessed to doping after revelations by soigneur Jef D'Hont and an investigation into the work of the team doctors who were part of the Sports Medicine Department of the Freiburg University Clinic.

There were calls for Riis to hand back his yellow jersey, but due to the 10-year statute of limitations, he could not be formally suspended, nor could his victory be cancelled from the record books. Riis showed some remorse but was allowed to stay in the sport.

He became the manager and driving force of Team CSC and then Saxo Bank-Tinkov for a decade, trying to take on Armstrong with Ivan Basso and Tyler Hamilton. He was accused of knowing that his riders doped and of doing little to stop them, but he worked with teams until 2020.

In recent years, Riis has become a television and media pundit in Denmark. As a team manager, he was known for his long silences and scowls during interviews but is now frequently in the headlines for his bold comments about Jonas Vingegaard and pro cycling.

Rolf Aldag

Aldag was a long-time domestique and core member of Team Telekom, racing for the team between 1993 and 2005. He was part of the 1996 and 1997 Tour-winning teams and doped like many of his teammates, but confessed and apologised in 2007.

When Bob Stapleton took over as team manager and tried to clean up the team, he wanted Aldag as a sports director and rider mentor. Aldag's character and experience meant he played a key role in Mark Cavendish's early years with the team.

"We drew a line and said, this is the past, and we draw the line here and make sure this never happens on this team," Aldag told Cyclingnews in 2008.

Aldag left the sport in 2011 when the team folded, but returned in 2015 and linked up with Cavendish once again as the Performance Manager at MTN-Qhubeka. He rose to become Chief of Sports at Bora-Hansgrohe but was replaced in 2025 after Red Bull came on board. He is now the Director of Sport for the women's Canyon-SRAM team and is based in South Africa when not at races or team camps. Aldag will commentate on the 2026 Tour de France for Eurosport Germany.

Udo Bölts

Udo Bölts was one of the hard men of 1990s German cycling and rode for Telekom between 1991 and 2002. He famously finished 12 consecutive editions of the Tour between 1992 and 2003.

During the 1997 Tour, Bölts famously shouted "Torture yourself, you pig!" at Ullrich as he suffered under the pressure of Richard Virenque's Festina team's pace-setting. Bölts helped save Ullrich's Tour victory, and the phrase became a sporting aphorism. Bölts even copyrighted the phrase and still uses it today to sell merchandise.

True to character, Bölts still rides a lot, mixing mountain biking with gravel and working as a guide at the Pfälzerwald Mountain Bike Park in western Germany. He has won Masters titles at the Cape Epic mountain bike stage race and UCI Gravel World Series events, and was third at the 2025 Masters Gravel World Championships.

Christian Henn

Henn turned professional with the legendary Italian Carrera Jeans team in 1989 after winning a bronze medal in the road race at the Seoul Olympic Games. He raced for Telekom between 1992 and 1999.

He retired after testing positive for testosterone but still found a place in the sport, working as a sports director for the equally troubled Gerolsteiner team that exploded in 2008 after several team leaders tested positive for the second-generation EPO variant CERA.

Henn was a sports director with the German Lotto-Kern Haus Continental team until 2021 but is now semi-retired.

Jens Heppner

Like Ullrich, Heppner came through the East German school of cycling and turned professional with Panasonic-Sportlife in 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He raced for Telekom for a decade, often sharing a room with Ullrich at major races.

He worked as a sports director for Team Wiesenhof after retiring in 2005. While many of his former Telekom teammates confessed to doping in 2007, Heppner continues to deny he doped, perhaps because of Heppner's close links to Ullrich.

However, in 2013, he was one of 18 riders named in a French Senate report that linked their 1998 samples to EPO in retrospective tests. The UCI said those results could not be used for disciplinary action. Heppner, who has never admitted doping, left his role at Team NetApp shortly afterwards and never returned to professional cycling. He now occasionally works as a cycling guide in Mallorca and South Africa.

Brian Holm

Holm was the chatty Dane amongst the more reserved German riders at Telekom. He was a friend of Riis but impressed Belgian team manager Walter Godefroot, securing his place at Telekom thanks to his results with the Roland and Histor teams.

Holm was a kind of bridge between Riis and the German core at Telekom, his sense of fun helping to lift the mood during the fatigue of the 1996 Tour. He retired in 1998 and so avoided the first doping scandals. He confessed to taking EPO at Telekom in 2007 when the Freiburg investigation exposed the true depth of Telekom's doping.

Ironically, he returned to Telekom as a sports director in 2003, shocked at Ullrich's lack of love for racing in the final years of his career. Holm soon bonded with Mark Cavendish and stayed with the Manxman for long spells of his career.

Holm was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2004 and was elected as a right-wing councillor for the wealthy Frederiksberg municipal council in Copenhagen, but worked as a sports director for QuickStep until 2022.

He is now a race analyst for Eurosport in Denmark and was in Italy to witness Jonas Vingegaard's victory at the Giro d'Italia.

Mario Kummer

Kummer was the veteran of the 1996 Telekom team, turning professional with Chateau d'Ax in Italy after winning the gold medal in the team time trial at the 1988 Seoul Olympics with East Germany.

Kummer only survived two stages of the 1996 Tour after crashing on stage 1 and fracturing his collarbone. His early loss highlighted how Telekom dominated the Tour even with just eight riders.

Kummer retired in 1997 but would work with Telekom as sports director until 2005. He joined Astana in 2007, but unlike several former teammates, he did not confess during the 2007 revelations. Kummer then worked for SRM and Uvex after he left pro cycling and now runs a holiday and coaching business, often staying at the same Robinson-Club Cala Serena holiday resort in Mallorca, where Telekom gathered for their winter training camps.

Erik Zabel

Zabel's sprint success in the 1995 Tour convinced Telekom to invest massively in pro cycling, leading to the success of 1996, Jan Ullrich's career and the eventual doping scandals and investigations that still cast a shadow over the sport in Germany.

Zabel famously won Milan-San Remo four times, 12 stages at the Tour and six green points jerseys between 1996 and 2001. He was forced to confess to doping in 2007 but claimed that he only took EPO once in 1996. Zabel raced until 2008, ending his long career with Team Milram. His son Rick would also become a pro rider.

Zabel was a sprint coach with several teams but was dismissed by Katusha and the Canyon brand after eventually making a much fuller doping confession in 2013, admitting to foul play between 1996 and 2003.

The German has been Canyon's Pro Sport Manager since 2017, acting as a conduit between the bike brand and its partner teams.

He arguably benefited from what could be called the Armstrong paradox. The Texan doped and was banned for life, but is still disliked and considered 'persona non grata' in the sport because of the way he bullied his rivals, the media and sponsors. Zabel is the opposite. He confessed a little, kept quiet, stayed friendly and kept a role in the sport.

Jan Ullrich

Jan Ullrich, like most of his Telekom teammates, eventually confessed to doping after going through a rollercoaster career that included taking EPO for the first time in 1996, helping Riis win the Tour and then winning himself in 1997.

Ullrich suffered and doped in silence as he battled with Lance Armstrong, the Texan's dominance and personal issues stopping Ullrich from ever winning another Tour de France. His struggles against Armstrong, with weight and his personal life, somehow made Ullrich relatable to millions of Germans and cycling fans around the world.

"He comes across as a kind of likeable guy. He's no Einstein, and he doesn't profess to be. He's a kind of simple guy, and that helps to endear him to people," Friebe tells Cyclingnews.

"There was forgiveness, and there could have been sympathy because he was seen as a pawn in a bigger game. He was this kid who was thrust into the East German system and then into a German cycling craze. I personally felt sympathetic towards him too while writing my book."

Ullrich is now 52 and has gone through some incredible highs and lows in his life.

Friebe spent almost a decade researching and writing his book on the man from Rostock. Ullrich was a talented East German teenager who won the amateur world title in Oslo in 1993, the same year that Armstrong surprisingly won the elite world title. He confirmed his talents by loyally helping Riis win the 1996 Tour and then dominated himself in 1997, beating Richard Virenque by over nine minutes.

He lost to Pantani in 1998 after suffering in the cold and rain on the stage over the Galibier to Les Deux Alpes. Then Armstrong came along, and not even a blood doping programme created by Eufemiano Fuentes could help Ullrich defeat the Texan. A gold medal in the road race at the 2000 Sydney Olympics ahead of Telekom teammates Andreas Klöden and Alexander Vinokourov was of little consolation.

Armstrong retired in 2005, but Ullrich raced on until the Operación Puerto scandal exploded in the summer of 2006. He was named and shamed before being stopped from riding the Tour de France on the eve of the race in Strasbourg and then sacked by T-Mobile. His DNA was later used to confirm that blood bags stored in Fuentes' fridge were for 'Hijo Rudicio - Son of Rudi'. Ullrich's code name was linked to his sports director and mentor, Rudi Pevenage.

Despite all the evidence, Ullrich went into denial, even when the Court of Arbitration for Sport found him guilty and retroactively banned him for two years and cancelled his results from May 2005 until his retirement in February 2007.

"I sat in the car driving home from Strasbourg thinking: That was it. It is all over. And it was. I was right. For the next four years, I sat in my house and looked out of the window," Ullrich told Rouleur years later.

A move to Mallorca with his wife Sara proved disastrous, and she soon left with their children. Ullrich lost control of his life due to alcohol and drugs, and in 2018, he was treated in a psychiatric hospital unit. Fortunately, Armstrong felt compelled to make an intervention to help his former rival and flew to Germany.

"I had big problems, and then you came to see me. I was so glad you came, and yes, I was just like Marco Pantani… nearly dead,” Ullrich admitted a few years later in one of Armstrong's podcasts, after a slow process to get his life back on track.

That journey to redemption included a full confession, and Ullrich eventually came clean in 2023.

"If I had told my story, I would have had many wonderful years. But I didn't have the courage. Now it feels good to admit my guilt," he told the German media.

Ullrich still believes he deserves to be considered the 1997 Tour de France winner, despite confessing to doping. Armstrong lost his seven Tour victories because of the so-called 'fraudulent concealment' and because his 2009–2010 comeback reset the clock.

"I know what I have achieved. Personally, I think I deserve the title. Others have to decide that. But in my heart I am a Tour de France winner,” Ullrich said.

A return to riding his bike helped Ullrich get his life back on track, and he is now a popular figure in Germany.

He has 460,000 followers on Instagram, a new podcast with Rick Zabel and is the star of an annual Jan Ullrich Cycling Festival. His agent and PR people offer him as a corporate speaker, claiming he "stands for attitude, honesty, and the strength to get back up after setbacks." His doping is rarely mentioned, while he is still considered the only German Tour de France winner.

"I've been surprised since he has come clean how quickly public opinion has flipped," Friebe, who is based in Berlin, told Cyclingnews.

"I think time is the biggest healer. Until 2022, there was a sort of tension between Ullrich and the German public and German media. Everyone was desperate for him to confess, and until he confessed, he wasn't going to be allowed back into public life. Now he is."

Mathieu van der Poel has admitted he has very mixed feelings about the Tour de France, the pain and suffering of racing for three weeks only occasionally rewarded with stage victories and short spells in the yellow jersey. But with the Dutchman revealing that 2027 could be the last Tour of his career, he has newfound enthusiasm for this year's race.

Van der Poel's palmares is heavy with Classics victories, a World Championships road race, and a record-breaking eight cyclo-cross world titles. He hopes to finally add a mountain bike Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles in 2028, and then could end his career.

"That would be wonderful. But I also know how difficult that will be," van der Poel told a small group of Dutch-speaking media in a pre-Tour de France interview.

"I think 2028 could be a nice endpoint. Then I’ll be 33, a good age to stop. But nothing is final yet. If I still have the level in 2028 and still enjoy doing it, then anything is still possible."

Van der Poel won a stage to Boulogne-sur-Mer in the 2025 Tour, beating Tadej Pogacar in a reduced sprint. He wore the yellow jersey for four days and was in five other breakaways but was forced to quit the race before stage 16 due to pneumonia.

His long spells in France in July have often meant a lot of effort for little reward.

"I have a love-hate relationship with the Tour," Van der Poel said.

"But the older I get, the more I enjoy going to the Tour. So I certainly don't leave home reluctantly. Of course, I still prefer one-day races, in those I can be completely myself, but by now I can better accept that in a Grand Tour there are stages where I don't play a role."

Van der Poel will again team up with Jasper Philipsen as team leaders for Alpecin-Premier Tech. The Belgian will target the sprints and the green points jersey, with van der Poel often his leadout man and alternative on hillier stages and finishes.

"I get a lot of satisfaction from trying to win stages with him," Van der Poel said.

"I think I have to be realistic: on eight out of ten finishes, Jasper is faster than me. Of course, there are finishes that might suit me but then we have to prioritise the green jersey. If he were to lead out the sprint for me, he would lose too many points. I know that so I have no problem with it."

The opening TTT, then yellow on stage 2?

Van der Poel revealed he will be Alpecin-Premier Tech's protected rider in the opening team time trial in Barcelona on Saturday, in the hope of having a shot at then taking yellow if he can then win stage 2 on the same uphill finish to Montjuïc on Sunday.

"We have invested in the TTT as a team and are certainly going to give it a chance but we have never really proven anything in a team time trial like this. I hope we can spring a surprise," van der Poel said, perhaps remembering his strong time trial performance at the Tour de Suisse when he went close to beating Pogačar.

"On paper, stage 2 should suit me but riders like Pogačar, Evenepoel, and Vingegaard also go all out on those finishes and then it won't be easy for the rest to keep up. I'm certainly going to try to take the yellow jersey but it won't be easy at all."

Van der Poel will surely go on the attack on other stages but will have to roll the dice against other Classics riders and stage hunters, while also working for Philipsen. That could mean the Tour is three weeks of suffering until a final shot at stage victory on the streets of Paris.

"The new course with the Montmartre is certainly something to look forward to," he said.

"I saw Wout Van Aert win on television last year. And I have to say: it did hurt a bit not to be there."

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

The enforced absence of star GC signing Oscar Onley due to injury has not stopped his Netcompany Ineos squad from naming a powerful and versatile line-up for this year's Tour de France.

Fourth last year and considered a dark horse for the Tour de France podium this year, Onley was confirmed to be a non-starter last week after he crashed heavily in stage 6 in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, badly injuring his shoulder.

In his absence, the British squad named an experienced eight-rider team for the Tour de France that includes 2019 overall winner Egan Bernal, time trial specialist Filippo Ganna and Dutch climber Thymen Arensman, who captured two Tour mountain stages last year.

If Onley's absence represented an important setback for the team, the good news for Ineos is that Josh Tarling, who broke his collarbone on the same Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes stage where Onley crashed out, has recovered in time for the Tour.

The young British time triallist will add yet more firepower in that speciality to the squad, with a line-up that also includes two former World Champions in the speciality, Ganna and Tobias Foss.

Strong performers in the TTT at the recent Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Netcompany Ineos will surely be planning to put on a similarly impressive performance this Saturday in Barcelona.

"This team has some great racers who people love to watch. They’ll have the freedom to go for it and race aggressively across the three weeks. Fortune favours the brave. We didn't come to this Tour to follow the race - we came to shape it," Director of Racing Geraint Thomas, himself a former Tour de France winner, said in a press release.

“Barcelona’s team time trial presents a great opportunity to start strongly. This year we’ve performed well in this discipline so will give it everything we’ve got. From there, it’s going to be full-on and we’re ready to take on the challenge."

Three of the Netcompany line-up, Arensman, Bernal and Ganna, have also ridden the Giro d'Italia this May, where Arensman finished fourth overall and Ganna won his eighth stage.

“I think riding the Giro d’Italia is actually pretty good preparation and I’ve taken some time to recover and look after the body," Arensman, 26, said.

"I have some great memories from last year’s Tour and I’m motivated to be there again and see what we can deliver. We have a strong team and it’s a really good group dynamic which is always really important.”

"It's a really strong group we're taking to the Tour and that's what excites me most. I'll do my job to give everything in the time trials and on the flat, keep the team in the right place, and we'll see what we can build over the three weeks together," Ganna added.

While Onley absence was announced last week, a more unexpected name to be missing from the lineup is Spain's Carlos Rodríguez, who has raced the Tour for Ineos for the last three editions.

Netcompany Ineos will also be able to count on one of the most successful breakaway and small group sprint racers of 2026, former French national road race champion Dorian Godon, while Kévin Vauquelin, seventh last year, will be also be making his Tour debut for Netcompany Ineos.

Last but not least, Polish veteran Michal Kwiatkowski, recently crowned Polish National TT champion, has overcome injuries earlier this season to take on a team captain's role in the Tour.

"Racing the Tour de France was my motivation to come back from injury this year," the double stage winner and former World Champion said.

"At times it felt almost impossible, but I never stopped believing, and with great support from the team, I made it. I'm proud of what I've achieved in such a short time and am ready to get out there racing."

Netcompany Ineos for 2026 Tour de France

• Thymen Arensman (Ned)
• Egan Bernal (Col)
• Tobias Foss (Nor)
• Filippo Ganna (Ita)
• Dorian Godon (Fra)
• Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol)
• Josh Tarling (GB)
• Kévin Vauquelin (Fra)

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Much like the appearance of mince pies on supermarket shelves, it seems that races that are nominally Tour de France warm-ups get earlier every year. Even with this preparation creep, I cannot remember a year when any race before Opening Weekend had the eyes of the world on it, viewed through the lens of La Grand Boucle.

The Tour this year starts with a team time trial, a format that according to Alex Dowsett, Performance Engineer at XDS Astana, has been on the decline for the last half decade. Choosing to open the biggest race of the year with this underutilised discipline, rather than slotting it at, say, the end of the first week, allows teams the chance to bid for the coveted yellow jersey immediately, and as such there has been renewed focus from many teams on specific preparations.

Paris-Nice featured a TTT, flying the flag for the unorthodox newer timing format where each rider gets an individual time, rather than the whole team given the time of the fourth or fifth rider, and not to be outdone the Critérium du Dauphiné (or the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, if you must) also featured one this year, no doubt in a bid to lure the biggest riders to its roads for a final tune-up, though an unsuccessful one.

The preparations for many teams, however, started in January, at a small series of one-day races in Mallorca, one of which was a TTT. I've already brought you a tech gallery, housing details of three unreleased (at the time) TT bikes, but I also took the opportunity while I was on the ground to sit down separately with Alex Dowsett, and Jonny Wale, Technical Performance Manager at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe to take a deep dive into the format, dynamics, and preparation needed to do justice to this most specialist of disciplines.

A resurgent discipline

Sitting in a hotel lobby in an out-of-season beach resort, I asked Dowsett his thoughts on the demise and recent resurgence of the TTT as a discipline.

"I think the reason TTTs took a back step was because it really showed the difference in rider rosters between teams in strength and depth, the depth of strength. And a team time trial really accentuates that," he said.

"You could say it's more like if you have a climbing team with riders more predisposed to be riding at 350, 400 watts on the front, because they're between 50 and 60 kilos, and you've got all of those versus a team who are 70 to 80 kilo riders who are riding 500 watts on the front… That, in a team time trial, is going to be a huge difference in time. And I think the reason that they took a back step is they were having almost too much influence on races, in terms of overall race results and the individuals who would win or lose races."

The ebb and flow of the popularity of the TTT seems to have been on Wale’s mind long far in advance of his joining Red Bull, along with Dan Bigham. A relative drought in the usage of the format, much like a suspicious lack of earthquakes in a tectonic zone, likely means something seismic is on the way.

"It's kind of why, when me and Dan first came to the team, we did put this big emphasis on it because you kind of see there's been nothing for three or three four years now…so oh, we're probably going to get one," Wale said. "I don't want to feel like an oracle, but one appeared. I'm almost certain this year and next year we'll have quite a few, and then it'll probably die back down again."

A new format

Usually the team time for a team time trial (try saying that fast three times) is taken on the fourth rider to cross the line, or a similar point back in the roster, and all the riders who finish get that time (those who were dropped earlier would still lose time).

This year, though, for the opening stage of the Tour, the format has been shaken up, with each rider receiving an individual time rather than a collective one. The team that wins is the team whose first rider finishes the fastest.

The popularity of this as a format varies from team to team, with Dowsett being in favour.

"I like the concept… I do think that's better than the minimum finishing requirement. It encourages a little bit more creativity too with pacing, which is nice, and with less consequence and less risk. So yeah, I think it’s a good thing. I think it eases the pain of the difference between big teams and small teams."

Wale, on the other hand, is less of a fan, and is of the opinion that it reduces the ‘team’ part of the discipline.

"Personally I'm not a fan of the rider time taken on the first rider approach. I think it's a spectacle, but I think the beauty of team time trialing is you have to finish with four or five, or however many they want to finish with, but you know, it's that you have to strategically, tactically maximise the seven or eight riders."

Team selection

As the TTT occurs on stage 1 of this year's Tour, the reward is not just the stage win, but the yellow jersey too. This, surely, will have an impact on team selection, though perhaps as times are individual it may be a case of simply delivering one's GC leader to the foot of the final climb for the short-ish sprint to the summit.

Team selection for the Tour is as much a factor of budget as it is the ideal squad. Dowsett outlines the difficulties of trying to factor a TTT into signings and rider development.

"Some of that then comes down to budget as well; [rider] salaries are the highest cost, and we've seen, now more than ever, that the salaries of a lot of riders are going up. Not all teams could afford this and sometimes have to be really smart with their signings; targeting youth, targeting potential rather than heavy hitters… Expensive hitters," he explained.

"And what then happens and when you must finish with four, you might have two super talents, and then they might be carrying two riders, whereas you might have another team with four super talents that can run to the finish. And the reality is, if you are at the final quarter or third of a team time trial, and you are those two really strong guys, you would likely be faster by yourselves than having to carry the other two."

For Wale, who likely has access to a greater number of 'expensive hitters' at Red Bull, Tour selection will be based to a not-insignificant degree on TTT performance, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

"Yes, team selection will be dependent on team time trialling performance. If you've got two guys, they both do the same role equally as well for the 20 days, but the first day one guy will do a better team time trial, then you would bring him," he said. "But it's also a motivating tool once these guys understand what the demands of the event are, and what we're going to expect of them, then they've got six months to do their homework."

Curiously, despite having Remco Evenepoel in the squad, the focus appears to be primarily on the riders lower down in the roster. Riders who, it seems, can make or break the result.

"It's your, I'll call them 'second tier' riders within time trialing in these Tour squads, they're the guys that almost win it for you, because it's seven or eight guys.

"If you put Remco with seven, eight climbers who never ride a time trial bike, you're not going to win. So that was initially, when we came in, we really put that big focus in, even last year. That was all towards the Vuelta team time trial. It's aero testing these second level guys, and building the culture of it as well."

Collective benefits

Having a TTT on the cards from a long way out, with several opportunities to practice, means team selection (the long list at least) takes place further in advance of the Tour than usual to allow time for practice, be it in training or in these warm-up races.

While this has additional challenges in terms of rider management, according to Wale it also presents a brilliant opportunity to truly build a team atmosphere, rather than a collection of individuals working towards a collective goal.

"When you add that team element to it it really bonds emotionally with a lot of people. It makes them do the dirty work they don't want to do. They don't want to do a team time trial session on the turbo and in the rain, or they don't want to ride it two, three times a week. If you give them a purpose, because it's their mates, it's that collective bringing people together.

"It's not as simple as having the right watts per kilo; in the Tour you need eight boys that really believe in each other. And opportunities like these [in Mallorca] are the training sessions. Even the little things like spending extra time together in the cafe, in the restaurant, in their rooms, you know? It brings them together and builds that team culture."

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The new format for the Santos Tour Down Under, where the women's event will run alongside the final three days of the six-stage men's event, will also be bringing some new course twists including a dual ascent of Willunga Hill where the traditional approach will be flipped.

The 874km men's race, from January 19 to January 24, will start at 10:40am local time each day and the first stage will eschew the normal sprint-friendly start and immediately open up with a 170km day which will keep the entire field of the opening WorldTour race of the season on its toes. The route will start at Henley Beach and includes three ascents of Checker Hill before the Gumeracha finish line so the battle for the ochre jersey of the leader will begin early.

Stage 2 of the men's race may give the fast finishers their chance, with three runs around a 50km loop from Angaston which takes riders through the Barossa and has a gradual uphill run to the finish. Then on the 170km stage 3 from Lobethal the climbing legs will be tested, with two laps around Mount Lofty and a double ascent of the Corkscrew before turning right to head toward the Campbelltown finish line.

From Friday January 22 the three-stage and 397.3km women's Tour Down Under will also begin, starting at 12:10 each day at 90 minutes after the men set off, and tackling the same course and same distance.

“By having two races out on the roads at the same time, we had to get creative with our course design and I feel there will be a lot more unknowns next January, "race director Stuart O'Grady said in a media release.

“We’ve had to look for different roads and climbs, so it will be a different-looking TDU and I’m excited by that.

“Things like three ascensions of Checker Hill will spice up the race from day one, and a new approach to Willunga Hill on the penultimate day could really change the way that stage is raced."

The first double race day on Friday, stage 4 for the men and stage one for the women's race, will set off from Glenelg which was also where the first Women's WorldTour ranked edition began. The 144.7km course will pass through Chandlers Hill, McLaren Vale and Nettle Hill before returning to a waterside finish on The Esplanade.

"Glenelg has become symbolic for big moments in our women’s race so it’s fitting that it hosts the start of the first ever men’s and women’s double header – which also promises to be a really hard first stage of the women’s race,” said O'Grady.

On Saturday the race will then twice sweep up to the top of the iconic climb of the event, Willunga Hill. However, the 116km stage from Christies Beach will instead be tackling the Willunga loop in the opposite direction to previous years.

The final day of racing will deliver an Adelaide Hills finale, with the finish line in Stirling, just as it was for the men's event in 2026. But this time, the start will be at Norwood, delivering an altered path to the finish line that includes Norton Summit, KOM and QOM points up for grabs in Ashton and Checker Hill before heading to Lobethal and Hahndorf.

Finally, riders will take on a lap of Stirling before the finish line delivers the victors of the first men's and women's WorldTour races of the 2027 season.

Hello again everyone!

When my coach informed me, after my performance at the Tour of Romandie, that instead of racing the Tour de Suisse I would go to the Dauphiné… my bad, the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (or TARA, as I will call it for the rest of this piece), I was initially quite apprehensive.

Although I had just earned my first WorldTour top 10 GC result, finishing sixth in Romandie, I felt like it was a potential step too far, due to the fact that the race is widely known amongst the pros for how hard it is, actually harder than a week of a Grand Tour.

My coach brushed it off and said back to me, "Well, you shouldn't have done so well at Romandie!" I couldn't really disagree with that, so I now had three weeks until the Tour de France preparation race, and not in my wildest dreams could I have expected what occurred.

But before I talk about my memorable week in France, I want to bring you back to the weeks prior to the race. My girlfriend is from Denmark, and due to the extremely busy few months prior for both of us, we hadn't seen each other for over two months. I pre-planned going to Denmark to see her many weeks before I knew I was doing TARA, so two weeks out I went and visited her for 10 days.

What struck me was that practically 80% of the peloton that was racing TARA was at altitude during this period, the majority of them in Sierra Nevada. Even my own teammates that were racing as well were up on a mountain breathing thin air, and there I was at sea level, at my girlfriend's house, riding around the rolling Danish hills around Vejle. I should mention the longest hill is about three minutes, so not ideal for mountain training. Yet, the most important factor for me during this period was the mental benefit of being around my loved ones. I still did my training; I still did a few active heat sessions, but the main point was that I wasn't feeling lonely and exhausted on top of a mountain.

My time in Denmark wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. While I felt extremely good on the bike doing my long endurance rides, I was really struggling to complete any form of harder VO2 efforts. I felt as if I couldn't push my body to its limit. I felt as if my head would just give up from the pain of the efforts.

I've experienced this a few times this year, especially after the passing of my younger sister in September last year. Some days I can wake up feeling completely 'normal', eat my breakfast, roll out for my ride feeling fine, but as soon as I start my efforts, I have no motivation. I felt emotional and weak. This happened one day while doing a hard VO2 session. I got roughly five minutes into my first set, and my body just gave up. I had a bit of an emotional moment on the side of the road as I felt sorry for myself, questioning why this was happening, and stressed over the fact I was racing TARA in a week's time. I spent the rest of the day feeling miserable on the couch, being comforted by my girlfriend.

Over the next few days, I slowly felt more like myself again, and together with my coach, modified my training depending on how I felt each morning and the mental state I was in.

'I went to the race excited for the week ahead with a smile on my face'

I won't lie to you, I was now feeling even more nervous about TARA after being mentally unable to finish any efforts for the last week, but I said to my coach I still wanted to race because it was something else for my brain to focus on, and my body still felt in good condition post-Romandie.

What is great about the systems that are in place at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe is that information about the athlete is shared with all individuals working with the rider. So even though I only explicitly told my coach about how my head was feeling and the struggles I was going through during this week, that information was shared with my personal directeur sportif, my nutritionist, my doctor, and the wider coaching group.

I spent two days in Girona, my old European home, between travelling back from Denmark and going to TARA. My DS, Shane Archbold, a retired former professional who was in the Bora team for many years prior to the arrival of Red Bull, also happened to be in Girona over the same period. He asked if I'd like to join him for a ride before I left again, and the conversation that we had on this ride completely changed my outlook for the week ahead.

I hadn't seen Shane for a while. The only race we had done together this year was Tour Down Under, and he had just returned from the Giro. On this ride, Shane put it simply to me. I had already exceeded expectations this year, both from a personal standpoint and from a team standpoint. My performances at Catalunya and Basque Country delighted the team, and a sixth place in Romandie was the cherry on top of that that no one was expecting. Already to finish in the top 10 on GC as a neo-pro in a WorldTour stage race was a massive achievement. I could have ended my season there and been more than satisfied with my year.

So, Shane told me to go to TARA with a free mind. There was no pressure from the team; the only pressure I had was the pressure I was putting on myself. He said to go and have fun, race with a smile on my face, find my physical limits. He said to try something crazy, and if something crazy happens, that's amazing, but if you blow up and finish twenty minutes behind the winner, that's also great. He also told me to race with my sister on my shoulder, and use the thoughts of her as motivation to get the most out of myself.

This one-hour conversation I had with Shane completely changed my feelings. I suddenly wasn't nervous anymore; I didn't feel stressed, and the emotional feelings I had floating around for the last few days evaporated. I went to the race excited for the week ahead with a smile on my face, in a clear mental space, and with no pressure. I felt free.

As I mentioned, Shane said to try something crazy, and if something crazy happens, that's amazing. And well, we tried something crazy and something crazy did happen.

The day that changed everything

I think by the middle of the race, the majority of people thought they knew how the race was going to pan out. A great victory on the first day by EF's Alex Baudin put a Frenchman into the maillot jaune on day one. The TTT confirmed that the superstar riders were ready to battle it out in the mountains. Everyone was talking about the inevitable Paul Seixas vs Isaac del Toro showdown that was going to happen sooner rather than later, but stage 6 of TARA flipped the script.

As a team, we had highlighted this stage as a seriously good chance for Maxim Van Gils to win the stage from the breakaway, so he deliberately lost time on GC two days earlier in order to go up the road without any other teams panicking. What we didn't expect was a sixty-man breakaway, half of the peloton, to be riding away from the main peloton. What we also as a team didn't expect was for me to be in that group only 1:03 down on GC. But I saw from the front of the peloton a few extra Uno-X riders bridging to the breakaway and remembered what they did on the final day of Basque Country this year.

For those who don't know, here is a brief explanation: Uno-X put their entire team into the breakaway with Tobias Halland Johannessen and rode him into third on GC. I instantly thought this was my chance to make a move for my own GC result.

And so the chaos began. I could probably write an extra two thousand words about how the stage went, but I won't let you suffer through that, so here is the short version. The breakaway instantly started working together, and the time gap kept increasing and increasing. Maxim and I were staying together in the group, and we were both feeling good. We came to the first of two final climbs, and the group immediately shrank in size, and we had a ridiculous 4:55 on the chasing peloton. I knew by this point that, all going well, I would be in yellow at the end of the stage, but in my head the priority was to win the stage. So that's what we set about doing.

On the final ascent to Crest-Voland, Maxim reduced the group to three; I bridged across myself a few minutes later to make it four and immediately started setting a hard tempo to set Maxim up for a sprint. We rounded the final bend with three hundred metres to go, and Maxim and Tobias duked it out for the stage win, and I emptied myself to the line to have as much time as possible on the group of GC riders behind, flying up the mountain.

Firstly, the joy that came over me seeing Maxim with his hands in the air taking the stage win actually made me forget for a moment about what I had achieved, but as I rolled across the line and towards my soigneurs it quickly sunk in that I was in yellow. To be honest, I only thought Seixas and Del Toro were probably only a minute behind us, but one minute became two, and two became three, and 3:15 after I finished they came across the line.

In short, I could not believe it. I was in yellow at the biggest one-week stage race in the world, as a neo-pro, with two days left and a three-minute advantage. This already felt like a win for me. Compared to how I was feeling on the side of the road in Denmark crying because I couldn't understand why I was unable to complete my efforts, to a week later standing on the podium in yellow with my first iconic lion, it was amazing. I genuinely couldn't stop smiling, and together with Maxim, we watched each other up on the podium and enjoyed the success together.

This is where I've been told I announced myself to the cycling world. I went from a relatively unknown rider to suddenly having a real possibility of winning TARA. But I wasn't too concerned about what would happen. The position I was in I could have never imagined. I felt like I had won already. I felt no pressure for the last two stages of the race. All I knew was that I would give my absolute all to try and end with the best result possible, and as long as I did that, I could be proud of myself.

I feel I don't have to give a play-by-play recount of the final two days because I am going to assume most people reading this article also roughly know what happened on those final days. I fought my heart out to keep the jersey on Grand Colombier and only had an advantage of 42 seconds over Matteo Jorgenson, and the following day I suffered like a pig up the Plateau du Solaison and somehow managed to hold onto second on GC.

This was a career-defining result. The result does change my trajectory within professional cycling. It shapes the rider I hope to eventually turn into, and my name is now more widely known. I have the memories of spending two days in the maillot jaune, and they will stay with me for the rest of my life. As I am writing this article two weeks after the race, I've had enough time to reflect on the week and the result I achieved. I am incredibly proud of myself.

But my biggest takeaway upon reflecting was the realisation of how a positive, free, and relaxed mental headspace coming into a race is equally as important as the physical shape you arrive with. A part of me wonders if this side of the sport is often overlooked in pursuit of the smallest possible gains in order to be in better form than our rivals. I wonder if there is some sort of magic in this, enjoying time at home with loved ones, recovering well from racing, not destroying yourself everyday in training, and appreciating the ups and downs of life. It also feels weird for me to comment on this after only being in the WorldTour for six months, and it's something I will continue to think about, but what I can say for sure is that a free mind equals fast legs.

See you soon,

Luke

New Zealand riders Bryony Botha (Fearless Femme pb the Beasley Firm) and George Jackson (Whoosh–NZ Cycling Project) won tight sprints in the Downer Classic on Saturday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Elite riders scored points in Saturday's contest, officially called Café Hollander Otto Wenz Downer Classic p/b ISCorp, the second round of the American Criterium Cup national series and the 11-day Tour of America's Dairyland (ToAD).

Botha surprised current ACC women's leader Skylar Schneider (L39ION of Los Angeles) with a strong final surge to earn the race victory. Another Kiwi, Kyra Marett (1Kflips Racing), the country's national criterium champion, secured third. With her runner-up finish on home Wisconsin turf, Schneider continued as the women's individual leader in the ACC standings.

"I didn't realise it was one lap to go. I saw my teammate Kiera at the front; I told her to just drill it. She did a great job with that. It was a great, spectacular, surprise attack by the New Zealand criterium champ, which set me up well. I don’t think my dad’s gonna believe me when I tell him I won a sprint," Botha told race organisers.

All the attacks in the women's race were controlled by the HigherDOSE RenovaPoints, which went on the hunt for mid-race sprint points. They took all the spoils with Andrea Cyr retaining the women's ACC sprint competition.

Botha also won the women's title across the 11 days of ToAD one-day races in various cities in Wisconsin. She collected 271 points with Claudia Marcks (Pedla Race Division) and Aline Seitz (HigherDOSE-Renova) timed for second with 249 points.

The men's field that started with a robust 145 riders was all together for the final circuit. Jackson came into the ACC matchup with four wins in the nine previous days of ToAD, and he wasn't close to being done. He carried momentum at the front of the field through the last corner and held off a late charge from former USPro crit winner Lucas Bourgouyne (Team Cadence Cyclery pb Waldo Racing) and current USPro crit champion Luke Elphingston (Project Echelon Racing), who went second and third, respectively.

“We thought it would probably come down to a field sprint; we knew there was so much cash on the line, so we knew it was going to be a hard one," Jackson said about the cash prizes at intermediate sprints causing chaos early on.

"The team has been coming here for 18-19 years, and we’re getting better and better each year. New Zealand is a small country, and we’re far away, so we don’t have races like this…We love coming here, the crowds were insane, everyone’s insane…it’s so much fun.”

With his runner-up finish, despite an early crash and cut to his knee from a collision into a chainring, Bourgoyne held his individual lead in the men's ACC standings. All of the significant sprint points were collected by Chaney Windows and Doors Big Shark p/b Pastaria riders, with Owen Gillot holding the ACC lead in that classification.

The five ToAD victories gave Jackson the overall title for the regional series with a total of 248 points, while his teammate James Wilson finished second with 271 points. Bourgoyne took third overall.

The next stop for the ACC will be July 11 in Boise, Idaho, for the Bailey & Glasser LLP Boise Twilight Criterium. That marks the midpoint of the series with three races to complete the schedule.

Results

Experienced sprint ace Tim Merlier is set to carry much of the weight of Tour de France expectations for Soudal-QuickStep this summer, in what will be the Belgian squad's first participation in three years in cycling's biggest bike race without Remco Evenepoel.

After Evenepoel signed for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe over the winter, Soudal-QuickStep have already remodelled their Spring Classics campaign to revive a traditional interest in the cobbled one-day races of the north. Following from that and with Merlier's third win in as many years in Scheldeprijs as the high point, this summer the WorldTour squad were now looking to see what they could achieve in the Tour without their former GC leader.

Whereas before the team looked more at the GC, now the top focus clearly remains on Merlier, with Team Manager Tom Steels saying, "the sprint stages remain our main goal".

"With the changes that were made in the points classification, he could also get involved in the fight for green, especially as he has a strong squad for the bunch sprints."

There are five to six opportunities for bunch sprints, albeit with the first coming relatively late on stage 5 to Pau. In all of them, Merlier will hope to rely on friend and lead-out men Bert van Lerberghe, Jasper Styuven - already a huge help to Soudal's other top sprinter Paul Magnier in the Giro d'Italia - to add to his current tally of three Tour stage wins.

Talented all-rounder and former Paris-Roubaix winner Dylan van Baarle, as at home in the Classics as he is in stage races, will also be of prime assistance.

With the team announced on Tuesday, any lingering hopes French fans might have had that talented young racer Paul Magnier would follow up his runaway success at the Giro d'Italia by providing an extra sprint option on home soil were dashed.

But if it made sense that as young a racer as Magnier would not be made to do two Grand Tours in a single year, there was also some disappointment for Basque fans when it emerged that veteran racer Mikel Landa, three times a top-five finisher in the Tour, the last as recently as 2024, would not be taking part either.

“I am very disappointed because I won’t be there after already missing the Giro d’Italia," Landa, now 36 and struggling with a back injury since a crash in his Itzulia Basque Country home race, said in a team press release.

"It’s been a difficult year so far, and after struggling in the Tour de Suisse, I realized there’s no point in trying to go to Le Tour. It’s important now to rest and recover, and hopefully I will be at the start of the Vuelta in two months.”

Other climbers who have made the grade, though, include Valentin Paret-Peintre, last year's winner on the Ventoux, and Belgium's Louis Vervaeke and his compatriot Ilan Van Wilder. A key helper for Paret-Peintre last year on the upper slopes of the Ventoux, Van Wilder was set to take over from Evenepoel for Soudal's GC hopes.

"Valentin, who is incredibly motivated and has improved in this past year, will try to be again a protagonist in the mountains, while Ilan will be our guy for the general classification, but the plan is for him to take it day by day," Steels said.

"I’m happy to be back at the start after my successful debut last year and I hope to get another stage victory, but it would be nice also to fight for the polka-dot jersey," added Paret-Peintre.

"When possible, I will also try to help the team and give my best so that we can get as many victories as possible. Alpe d’Huez stands out as the main attraction of the race, and it would be really nice to win there, especially as there are two opportunities.”

Soudal-QuickStep for the Tour de France

• Pascal Eenkhoorn (Ned)
• Tim Merlier (Bel)
• Valentin Paret-Peintre (Fra)
• Jasper Stuyven (Bel)
• Dylan van Baarle (Ned)
• Bert Van Lerberghe (Bel)
• Ilan Van Wilder(Bel)
• Louis Vervaeke (Bel)

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Juan Ayuso has made no secret of his high ambitions in this year's Tour de France, saying he will be fighting for a podium placing in Paris in the GC with his new 2026 team, Lidl-Trek.

The 23-year-old returns to the Tour after missing it in 2025. Last year he focused first on the Giro d'Italia, where he abandoned ill and injured after winning the opening mountain stage, and then went on to race the Vuelta a España, where Ayuso took two stage victories as well as supporting his then-teammate at UAE Joåo Almeida to second overall.

Fast forward another ten months and Ayuso is now ready to do battle for his own GC options, with his goal to become Spain's first top three overall finisher since Alejandro Valverde finished third behind Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana back in 2015.

"The goal is obviously to be on one step on the podium of Paris," Ayuso said in a team statement. "It's still going to be three weeks of hard work, and we will see what we can achieve.

"Everything can change in the Tour on any day. It's important to just not lose time and save energy in the first stages.

"We have some hard days in the first week but it shouldn't be too crazy until the weekend of the second week. There and throughout the last week the GC will be decided."

To date Ayuso's track record in the Tour de France has been lowkey, with his one appearance in 2024 ending in an abandon due to COVID-19 in the second week.

However, in terms of recent form, a third place overall in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes bodes well for his return. Furthemore, the Spaniard's track record in the Vuelta a España, where back in 2022 a third place overall converted the then-19-year-old into the race's youngest ever podium finisher, also shows he has the engine for three-week races.

Whilst Mattias Skjelmose will be Lidl-Trek's second GC option this July, Danish fans will also be watching to see how his compatriot and teammate Mads Pedersen fares in his first Tour de France since 2024, which ended badly when Pedersen crashed and later abandoned with an injured shoulder at the end of the first week.

Twice a Tour stage winner, once from a break in 2023 and once from a bunch sprint, the versatile Pedersen will be looking to add at least a third, as well as having a crack at adding the Tour's green jersey to his two Vuelta a España titles. The Tour is also, in a sense, part of his comeback trail after a rollercoaster spring following a fractured wrist injury in a race in early February.

"The feeling is pretty good, especially now after the Nationals. It was nice to pin the numbers again and be back racing. It's been a long time, so it's always nice to see to see how it feels when other guys are in the peloton and pushing the limits as well," Pedersen said.

"The main goal for the Tour is is winning a stage, and then we're trying to aim for the for the green jersey as well, even though [the] new points system is not in our favor.

"But nothing is impossible, and we have seen other riders do it before where we didn't expect it so we believe we can do it."

"Mads will go for green and almost doesn’t need an introduction," added sports director Steven de Jongh in the same statement whilst confirming Skjelmose's and Ayuso's overall goals.

"Mads is so strong and competitive in the sprints and even on days when sprinters will normally get dropped, he can survive. He is crazy good at going in the breakaway, so is [Mathias] Vacek who can join him there.

"Same for Quinn [Simmons, US Champion], he is also in good shape and just won the Nationals so he can give support when he needs, like riding in the valleys, and go in the break if there is a chance."

De Jongh also pointed out that Lidl-Trek could well have options in the opening TTT, with fourth in the recent test in that speciality in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes - where both Ayuso and Skjelmose were racing - a promising result.

"We’ve had great preparation for the TTT and have high expectations of being competitive," De Jongh said.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel will be able to count on strong support for the Tour de France this July, with Alpecin-Premier Tech announcing a formidable line-up to back their co-leaders at the biggest stage race of the season.

Philipsen, 28, emerged from the chaos of the windswept first day of last year's Tour to take the opening yellow jersey and add a tenth stage win to his palmarès, only to crash out two days later when leading the points competition.

Van der Poel, 31, continued the Alpecin opening run of Tour de France success with victory on the very hilly finale on stage 2 last year at Boulogne-sur-Mer ahead of GC heavyweights Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

Already a winner of an uphill first week stage back in the 2021 race, Van de Poel then led the 2026 Tour for four days before abandoning ill in the second week. However, Alpecin's excellent Tour continued deep into the third week when sprinter Kaden Groves – not present in their line-up this year – won stage 20 at Pontarlier from a late solo break.

This time round his teammate Philipsen comes off the back of an impressive spring Classics campaign where the Belgian fastman won a typically tough version of In Flanders Fields (formerly Gent-Wevelgem). That was prior to his snapping up overall victory in the Baloise Belgium Tour last week and a win in top Danish WorldTour race, the Copenhagen Sprint earlier in June.

One of the greatest Classics riders of all time and a breakaway winner in this spring of the E3 Saxo Classic despite almost being overhauled in the final metres, most likely the ultra-versatile Van der Poel will once again be targeting stage victories in the Tour.

Both the Belgian and the Dutchman will be able to rely on an impressive support line-up for the 2026 Tour, that includes former Paris-Roubaix podium finisher and ultra-reliable team worker Sylvan Dillier, and lead-out riders of the calibre of Edward Planckaert. Tim Marsman, recently part of the successful late breakaway in the Dutch National Championships road race is another important part of the Alpecin jigsaw.

Van der Poel also had some major personal news on Monday, when he announced on social media that he will become a father for the first time.

Alpecin-Premier Tech for the 2026 Tour de France

• Ramses Debruyne
• Sylvan Dillier
• Tim Marsman
• Jasper Philipsen
• Edward Planckaert
• Mathieu van der Poel
• Jonas Rickaert
• Emiel Verstrynge

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Right now you can't go far on any self-respecting sports website without seeing a story about how Tadej Pogačar's goal of capturing a fifth Tour de France would see him pull off one of the crowning achievements in the sport. And they're all right, of course.

But dig back in history, and it's fair to say that a rider joining the Club des Cinq – as the ultra exclusive, four-strong circle of five-time Tour winners is known in France – wasn't always the biggest story of the race. Far from it.

Take the main end-of-race analysis piece of the Tour de France or semi-official newspaper L'Équipe back in 1974, just when Eddy Merckx was on the point of conquering his fifth title.

Written by race director and leading sports journalist Jacques Goddet, the article had an extremely downbeat headline for one thing: 'Le cyclisme pro: une malade' – pro cycling is ill. And what made it even odder was right below the headline, there was a half-page photo of the soon-to-be-crowned Tour winner and the undisputed patron of the peloton, Eddy Merckx, in full lone flight towards Orléans. With one day remaining, he'd dropped the pack in his umpteenth display of panache and power once again, and all this by a point where he was already in complete control of the race. He was certainly not looking malade at all.

Bafflingly, there was not a mention in Goddet's summing up of the Tour that just a day later, Merckx would win his fifth Tour de France of five starts. Or that Merckx had already moved well ahead of André LeDucq's record-breaking total of 24 stage wins and would push it up to a new target of 32 by the end of the race. (By the end of the 1975 Tour, it was up to 34, a record that would stand for nearly half a century.) Nor even did it seemingly matter that Merckx was only 29, so in theory at least, he could take even more records in the years to come. Goddet was still unhappy.

"The Tour de France has not brought us all the satisfactions that we had hoped for two months ago," he wrote. And that was that. Not that Goddet had anything against Merckx in particular, it turned out, whom he said had "competently handled both the way the course played out and his rivals."

Rather, Goddet's beef was that the lack of serious opposition to the all-conquering Eddy – "an apathetic peloton," snarled part of the caption for the photo of Merckx regarding the bunch he'd just left reeling in his latest attack – had left the race looking and feeling more than a little, well, bland.

Riders had become overly concerned with their own well-being and were not willing to take risks, Goddet argued, and that was all the fault of modern society and the 'nanny state': its mollycoddling and obsession with safety had wreaked havoc "in this very special area of human activity" – bike racing – "where by definition, everything remains an adventure."

What Goddet's comments showed, then and now, is that while a fifth Tour de France title matters hugely in terms of the history of the sport, it doesn't have to be the story of the race.

Just like last year when Tadej Pogačar was on the cusp of a winning a fourth Tour but the main media focus was on his 'lack of motivation' in the third week, and whether a fifth Tour victory is a close-run affair like in 1964 for Jacques Anquetil or a snooze-fest like in 1974 for Merckx, the statistic can become something of an afterthought.

On the other side of the fence, with so many Tour victories already in the bag, rather than a feeling of etching a permanent place in the history books, the sense of an 'obligation' to take another can be what predominates inside a team.

"The first two or three Tours that he won were fantastic, but the last three he raced we suffered a lot because nothing that wasn’t winning made any sense," Eusebio Unzué, sports director of Miguel Indurain, once said.

"In the last few Tours, there was a huge amount of tension, knowing that if you didn’t make any mistakes, if you got it totally right inside the team, then he wouldn’t let you down. He was almost perfect. So you had to check everything time and again, make sure it was all going to work perfectly. And what was the first thing you did when you got to Paris? Breathe easy again."

Jacques Anquetil – the first to ever do it

But was it always like this? Certainly when it came to the first winner of five Tours, rather than feel obliged to keep going, come what may, the French star Jacques Anquetil knew exactly when to call time on the never-ending demands for greater and greater success.

After he became the first member of the Club des Cinq in 1964, in July 1965 Anquetil said he was no longer interested in taking part. As he put it, with refreshing honesty or dubious cynicism (take your pick), he wasn't going to race the Tour that year because "My contract won't get any bigger if I win a sixth, and on the contrary, I've everything to lose if I fail."

The key point to remember, though, was that by 1964 and when fighting for Tour number five, Anquetil had already not only equalled the previous record of three, jointly held by Philip Thys (1913, 1914, 1920) and Louison Bobet (1953, 1954, 1955), he'd gone one better. So rather than records, what inspired Anquetil go for Tour number five in 1964 (when he could perfectly easily have trotted out that 1965 line about not making any more money if he did take part then, too) was a different record. It was the chance to become the only rider after Fausto Coppi to conquer the Giro, which he'd won that May, and the Tour de France in the same year.

Quite apart from a rare 'double', another major issue was reportedly Anquetil's ego. Winning another Tour would mean stealing a march on arch-rival and fellow Frenchman Raymond Poulidor whose failure to win so often as Anquetil, combined with his much more downhome, salt-of-the-earth personality, had made Poulidor something of a fan favourite – and his Vuelta a España victory in April 1964 had put him on the map as the coning man. So sensitive to criticism that he once named his yacht 'Whistles' (in an ironic reference to the boos and catcalls he'd received after losing the 1959 Tour to Federico Martin Bahamontes), putting the Tour record out of reach with a fifth victory wasn't apparently top of Anquetil's to-do list. But putting Poulidor in his place, that was another story.

What's undeniable is that of the four Tours that gave their winners the chance to enter le Club des Cinq, 1964 was by far the most dramatic. Anquetil's tiny final margin of success, just 55 seconds, underlined the knife-edge nature of the event, and also – after years where riders would conquer the Tour or be defeated by handfuls of minutes – hinted strongly at how the Tour was lurching, albeit patchily, into a more modern, finely calculated era. Equally, on top of that, Anquetil's domination of the time trials (of which there were three), while Poulidor was much more superior in the mountains, helped keep the pendulum swinging back and forth. The first-ever live TV broadcasts of parts of Tour stages could hardly have come at a better moment.

The way things kept on going back in favour of one rider of the other was far from formulaic or limited to a particular type of stage, too: in the first week, Anquetil lost a 30-second time bonus because of a puncture in Briančon in the Alps (and struggled on the Galibier), then Poulidor miscalculated by a lap in the Monaco velodrome the next day, and Anquetil regained all his lost time.

Even on a single stage, the setbacks and bouncebacks succeeded in almost bewildering speed. In Anquetil's case, overeating at a vast lamb barbecue on the subsequent rest day in Andorra, and the fear induced by the prediction from one of France's most famous fortune tellers, La Mage Bellne, in France-Soir newspaper, that he would have a fatal crash on stage 14, left him reeling on an initial climb the following day. But after Anquetil had drunk a bottle of champagne at the summit of the Envalira (now there's a marginal gain for you), kindly provided by his team director, he overcame his severe indigestion. Thanks to a fantastic descent and a slightly questionable alliance, he managed to catch Poulidor on the flatter run-in.

But even then it wasn't all over. Before the end of the stage, Poulidor had crashed because of a mechanical and lost time on his arch-rival, only for Anquetil to suffer so much on the next day's stage that after an incredibly gutsy ride across the Portillon climb, Poulidor could regain much of his losses.

As if that wasn't enough to make it a great Tour, the image that defined the closeness of the Poulidor-Anquetil era (and again, underlines how much smaller the gaps were becoming) came just 48 hours before the finish at Paris, on the Pûy de Dome. With the final result still hanging on a knife-edge, the race's most emblematic image of the two was taken: leaning on each other as they tackled the interminably steep climb.

The image in question only was possible because Poulidor had just gone too close to a photographer's motorbike, scorched his leg on its exhaust pipe and was over-compensating in the opposite direction, and the point where they were in physical contact only lasted a few seconds. But it didn't matter: that brief moment, once voted the all-time definitive image of the Tour de France in later L'Équipe polls, perfectly underlined both the ferocity of their rivalry – neither rider willing to give an inch to their opponent – and the way that their rivalry fed off and supported each other as well. To quote Goddet again: "Never had two men who fought so ferociously for the most beautiful and strangest of trophies been brought so closely together in their effort."

Despite ceding a little on the Puy de Dôme, Anquetil finally won that year's Tour, thanks to his last blast on the time trial – although even there, Poulidor initially gave him a run for his money. But rather than the notable success of five Tours, his victory was memorable much more because of how he had had such a narrow pathway to triumph. The precarious nature of the triumph was both underlined by the famous answer Anquetil gave when told his GC margin on Poulidor had been reduced to 14 seconds – that's 13 seconds too much – not to mention his later revealed promise to himself that if Poulidor had taken yellow on the Puy de Dome, he'd have abandoned.

"What surprises me the most about him;" Poulidor said in turn, "isn't just his class, it's the way he knows how to suffer so much in a race."

"I'm proud to have beaten a great champion," Anquetil said, "in the hardest Tour I've ever done."

In the midst of all of these moving reflections on the drama and suspense provided by the race, the fact Anquetil had also won the Tour five times somehow didn't matter so much as the human angle. In an era like today's where the results seem to be what matters the most, that's surely something worth keeping in mind this summer in the Tour.

Eddy Merckx – The Cannibal

Anquetil's hotly disputed but hugely memorable fifth Tour effectively rounded off his career in July – in 1966, his one remaining participation, he and Poulidor basically marked each other out of contention. But the next rider to achieve five Tour victories, Eddy Merckx, showed no sign of retiring, and was clearly in a class of his own.

It wasn't just L'Équipe making that point, either: neither of his top challengers were present. 1973 Tour winner Luis Ocaña had been sacked by his team, BIC, before the start of the race, and perennial Dutch favourite Joop Zoetemelk was recovering from a life-threatening crash at the warm-up race of Midi-Libre. Bereft of big rivals, the process of Merckx clinching victory number five was curiously colourless, laying the foundations by picking up time bonuses wherever and whenever he could, but then blasting the opposition out of existence at Gaillard and Aix-les-Bains in the Alps.

It says it all that the one point of interest or flicker of rivalry in this "monotonous, boring Tour" – and if that was L'Équipe's description, imagine what the rest of the media were saying – was provided by a rider nearly aged 40, the incombustible Raymond Poulidor.

The Frenchman dropping Merckx briefly in the Alps on the Mont du Chât climb proved to be an ephemeral moment of weakness on the Belgian's part, but at least Poulidor's win in Saint-Lary-Soulan provided a refreshing change from Merckx' continuous domination. But if Merckx's success could seemingly be taken for granted, the fact his closest rival on the Tour podium was a 38-year-old made it clear that a new generation of contenders was sorely needed – one that duly emerged, defeating Merckx, in 1976.

By that point, Merckx's position as the greatest racer of all time had been clearly established and by anyone's standard, his 1974 season could only be considered a triumph throughout. Merckx preceded his Tour victory with a win in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de Suisse (albeit with no Spring Classics wins for the first time in his career) and followed his July triumph with victory in the World Championships. No other rider had ever previously secured the 'Triple Crown' and no rider would again until Stephen Roche in 1987. That he failed to ride defensively and instead went for eight stage wins, no less, was even more remarkable as he'd raced the entire Tour with a bleeding, open, wound in his perineum.

"To race in the Tour de France five times and to win each time, that's a dream, the kind of record I think is unusual," Merckx said according to the New York Times, its po-faced headline 'French Bike Tour won by Merckx' an indication of how little cycling had impacted in the US at that time more than anything else. But it's notable that even the Belgian didn't make so much of the number, rather he was prouder of having remained undefeated in all his participations. Again, it was the more human side of the endeavour that mattered the most, not the drawing equal with Anquetil.

By the time the Tour reached Paris, recalls the still-active British photographer John Pierce of Photosport International, who was present on the race, the public was more "nonplussed" and resigned at the latest demonstration of power than anything else.

"The atmosphere in the velodrome" – where the Tour finished for the last time ever that year before moving from La Cipale onto the Champs Elysées in 1975 – "was a bit flat," Pierce said. "Merckx was more like a Hollywood hero than a sporting hero, even if to me as a cyclist there's no greater racer. Even me, was going to see the guy who'd just won the 1974 Giro, which to me was the best bike race ever, he'd won by 12 seconds, not Merckx.

"At the time I don't think it was even mentioned that it was his fifth Tour, and I don't think people are going to celebrate Pogačar getting five either. It's like going to buy the same loaf of bread every day."

Bernard Hinault – The last French hero

Even if they don't sum it up completely, somewhere along the line in most Tours, an image emerges which captures its essence. In 1964, that'd be the Poulidor-Anquetil rubbing shoulders and elbows on the Puy de Dôme, while in 1974, it was Merckx blasting away alone to Orléans. As for 1985, it'd have to be Hinault with his bloodied, broken nose and two black eyes, crossing the line at Saint-Étienne on stage 14, and still able from then on to defy the odds and conquer the race.

Pre-race, if it had felt only logical that a four-time Tour winner should be the overwhelming favourite to take a fifth, that logic became even even more uncompromising given the 1984 champion Laurent Fignon – who'd beaten Hinault by more than ten minutes the previous July – was a non-starter because of an Achilles tendon operation. Furthermore, with Hinault's teammate Greg LeMond in second in Paris, the 1985 Tour was the first where a fifth, record-equalling win was also a demonstration of collective GC strength as well.

Yet there were plenty of wheels within wheels: for one thing, the race was split into unequal two halves by Hinault's crash. The Frenchman had won the opening TT, the stage 8 time trial and then still managed to gain time on LeMond, his nearest rival, in the Alps despite failing, surprisingly, to win a mountain TT.

But Hinault's crash in the final kilometre of the Saint-Étienne stage forced him on the defensive for the second half, particularly as congestion in his broken nose then morphed into fullblown bronchitis. The full picture behind events anchored in considerable controversy, such as LeMond being told by his team car that Hinault was much closer behind on a Pyrenean stage after he'd been dropped, remains unclear to this day, but they played out in Hinault's favour.

The same goes for LeMond's claims that he had to push Hinault on the following day in order to keep the Frenchman in yellow – Hinault was still in the lead as a result. The fact is that despite his struggles on the climbs, Hinault was more than capable of defending himself on the flat final time trial at Lac de Vassiviere, only ceding five seconds to LeMond. A fifth Tour was in the bag.

Hinault would later shrug off any suggestion he could have lost the 1985 Tour at any point. But even if LeMond could undoubtedly have come closer, Hinault was one of the handful of modern-day Grand Tour GC racers – Alberto Contador being perhaps the best – who could win as much or more by strategy as by brute force.

"Without my fall in Saint-Étienne, that would have been an easy victory," Hinault told L'Équipe in Bordeaux, going on – ever the politician – to thank LeMond for his support. "We blocked the opposition easily. Only [rival Stephen] Roche did what he could." As for the idea he might have earned extra prestige by winning injured and with two black eyes, Hinault answered succinctly, "Maybe, but it still sucks."

Present at the 1985 Tour as well, Pierce says the crowd's support for Hinault's success in Paris was "logically far greater as he's French, it was pretty good compared to 1974. It was also to do with their personalities and how they celebrated. Merckx was much more relaxed, acting like winning five Tours was the most natural thing in the world. Hinault was a lot more nervous when he got his fifth, jumping around, hamming it up and putting on a real show."

Yet for all the added glamour, perhaps the most remarkable thing about Hinault's win is that even as it seemed to confirm France's domination of its home race in the post-Merckx era – nine wins from the previous eleven editions, five in a row – in fact it proved a kind of death knell for the host nation's aspirations. To this day, Hinault's 1985 victory remains the last time the men's Tour has been won by a Frenchman. And no sooner had Hinault lost the Tour the following year (this despite having promised LeMond he would help him in return for the 1985 support), than he quit. For France, then as now, this was as good as it would get.

Miguel Indurain – 30 years since the last five-time winner

To judge by his interviews, for Hinault as it was for Merckx, a fifth Tour was one in a series rather than a goal in itself, particularly given the problems and setbacks he'd had achieving it. But attitudes to the fifth Tour, at latest in the media, had changed notably was by the time Miguel Indurain clinched his 1995 title, and became, in the process, the only member of the Club des Cinq to secure all five in one fell swoop. For one thing, after three of the greatest Grand Tour riders had fallen dramatically short in their sixth Tour bid or simply (as in Anquetil's case) opted out altogether, reaching five became the new gold standard. Secondly, Indurain's ability to win one Tour after another in immediate succession, unlike either Merckx or Hinault, focussed the interest on the number even more.

Furthemore, as Unzué says, both for the rider and for the team, Banesto, Indurain's lifelong squad, by 1995 the Tour de France had acquired an unwieldy level of importance. (It was one that caused some controversy too: Indurain's repeated absence from the Vuelta a España, held in April up to 1994 and which he avoided as racing it that month could have harmed his Tour build-up, even sparked questions in the Spanish parliament.) Yet if another Indurain Tour victory had become almost routine by 1995, it was curiously both the July where Indurain himself tore up his own strategy and the race where he came closest to losing.

Up until the 1994 Tour de France, for his previous four Grand Tour wins – two in the Giro and two in France – Indurain had always opted for riding defensively in the mountains and killing the opposition in the time trials. But in 1995, Indurain switched his game completely powering away on the shores of the River Meuse in Liège the day before a crucial time trial - where he'd normally have saved all his energy – a move which completely blindsided his rivals and gaining a hefty advantage, both psychological and real, as a result.

"I changed my strategy a bit and they got confused," Indurain once told El País. "The team might have had its ideas, but in a race, you have to take decisions."

"What surprised me the most about his winning the Tour in any year was the time when he attacked at the end of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège route," Unzué, confirming he had no idea Indurain's move was coming, once said in a biography of Indurain, Relentless.

"That was a Miguel Indurain that I didn’t know, the day before a time trial, what did he need to do that for? But that was the Tour, in an case, where we saw the day he came closest to racing like Eddy Merckx."

Yet if the Tour seemed to be completely in Indurain's power after his knock-out blow in Belgium and equally important ride up to La Plagne in the Alps, the biggest setback of the 1995 Tour came on the stage to Mende in the Massif Central a few stages later. And it was a massive blow.

"That was the hardest day of all the five Tours," Unzué once admitted, where "for many hours, it seemed as though something [an Indurain defeat] could happen… The Tour was slipping through our fingers."

More than capable of defeating any rival individually, as Indurain had proved in La Plagne, what proved nearly catastrophic was when Indurain faced a collective challenge, in this case by the Spanish team, ONCE. In a move across the rugged Massif Central to Mende airfield, the presence of three ONCE riders including team leader Laurent Jalabert in a day-long break left Banesto broken apart, and Indurain and his squad had to look for all kinds of circumstantial allies to try and bring them back.

Teams with absolutely no interest in the GC battle, for reasons that shall remain purely conjectural, opted to back Indurain in his bid to quell the ONCE mutiny. For all Jalabert was at 9:10 overall, when the gap rose to over ten minutes, it felt like Indurain's bid for a fifth Tour was about to go up in smoke.

For the Tour-centric Banesto (and a country like Spain that was obsessed with stage racing and barely had any ideas of the importance of the Classics), this was nothing less than disastrous. ONCE was the Spanish equivalent of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and the phone lines to its headquarters in Madrid reportedly collapsed under the numbers of outraged callers, demanding to know what the squad was doing, 'betraying' a fellow-countryman like Indurain.

"I felt the race was in danger that day," Indurain once told El País, "but that wasn't my responsibility, it was the team's. They had to control and that's where I put them under pressure because things had got out of control. I told them to sort it out and to see how they could do it. My job was to keep the GC contenders under control, and I had them under control."

Finally, enough teams collaborated – later claiming they were paying back an unspoken debt where Banesto would 'gift' stage wins to rivals – with a by-now completely isolated Indurain to bring Jalabert and co within a safe enough distance for the Navarran's maillot jaune to be safe. Jalabert won the stage, but his advantage of 4:50 was only enough to put him briefly on the podium. The yellow was another story.

It's true there were grumblings from 1996 Tour winner Bjaarne Riis that had the Tour raced the stage after the death of Fabio Casartelli in the Pyrenees, rather than neutralising it, Indurain might have been more vulnerable: But really the Tour ended the moment Indurain garnered enough support to keep ONCE under control on the road to Mende.

Such was Indurain's control that El País later insisted that "nobody would dare give an answer" to the question who could stop him taking a sixth in 1996. "They would be scared of being called a madman or a fortune teller," the newspaper reported. Yet in fact, as we know – and just like nobody ever doubted that Merckx would win a sixth, either – five proved to be the upper limit for Indurain and there it remains.

That is perhaps the pivotal fact on which all of the subsequent evaluations of five Tours really hangs. The importance of Pogačar's fifth win really depends on what happens if firstly he gets it, and secondly what happens afterwards. If, for whatever reason, that's as good as it gets, it will feel very different as a victory than if it's 'just' another Tour win en route to becoming the first rider ever to take six. So given we'll only know later what that fifth Tour win (if it happens) really means, for now perhaps it's best to do as happened with Anquetil and Hinault (and to a lesser extent with Indurain) and focus in on the human experience that it took to attain that achievement – and the records can remain in the history books and for the years to come.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

There was good news for Jonas Vingegaard on Tuesday morning as it was confirmed that teammate Edoardo Affini had been given the all clear to start the Tour de France, after a nasty crash on Thursday raised doubts over his participation.

Affini crashed heavily during the National Championships time trial last week, seemingly colliding with a guardrail at high speed on a descent early on in his effort.

Visma-Lease a Bike said last week that his condition would be monitored, but gave no update as to the nature of injury, apart from that he had no fractures. There had been murmurs in the Italian media that he had suffered nasty lacerations, and the Dutch press reported over the weekend that other Visma riders had been put on standby to start the Tour, should Affini not be able to.

However, in a short update on Tuesday morning, Visma confirmed that he had "been given the green light to travel to Barcelona and will start the 2026 Tour de France as planned".

The racing kicks off on Saturday with a city centre team time trial, where Affini is set to be one of the main engines of their effort as Visma chase as good a result as possible on the opening day.

But beyond the TTT, Affini is an important part of Visma's line-up for the entire race, and the fact that he can start on Saturday will come as a relief after Vingegaard's support team already took a blow with the loss of Christophe Laporte and Wout van Aert.

Along with Affini, Vingegaard will be supported in France by Matteo Jorgenson, Sepp Kuss, Davide Piganzoli, Bruno Armirail, Victor Campenaerts and Per Strand Hagenes.

Most teams are expected to arrive in Barcelona on Tuesday to begin their final preparations for the Grand Départ.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Sofia Gomez Villafañe and Keegan Swenson (both Specialized Off-road) returned to the top step at SBT GRVL on Sunday in Colorado, both launching solo attacks on the later segments of a refreshed 108-mile 'black' course. It was Swenson's fourth elite men's title while Villafañe won the elite women's race for a second time.

This year's Steamboat Springs long 'black' course featured one single-loop circuit through Routt County, with an out-and-back, washed-out gravel road, Cow Creek, featured as the first climb after the start from Yampa Street and again as a decisive technical descent in the final 12 miles.

Three elite men exited the Cow Creek climb at the front of the race - Nathan Spratt (Ventum + Voler), Adam Roberge (Felt UN1TD) and John Borstelmann (Ventum) - and set a marker of four minutes. Across the next 24 miles, two-thirds of that the longest ascent of the day with uneven pitches reaching 7%-9%, the leaders were caught by six riders - Swenson, Henry Nelson (Lunchbox Racing), Cobe Freeburn (Trek Driftless), Alexey Vermeulen (ENVE), Pete Stetina (Canyon) and John Keller.

By the mid-point of the race, Swenson was part of the new lead group as Freeburn, Roberge and Nelson, with Spratt, Vermeulen, Stetina and Keller giving chase, and Borstelmann dropping off the pace.

A long paved descent led to the second longest climb on the route, approximately nine miles of gravel, passing to the south of Hayden and from the crest leaving 35.5 miles for a return to Steamboat Springs. On the descent from this climb, Swenson launched his attack on a paved section and by the time he hit the return ascent to Cow Creek had a two-and-a-half minute gap.

Swenson completed his ride in 4:36:20, with Vermeulen second and Freeburn third in a four-rider chase who were five minutes back. Nelson finished fourth and Roberge fifth. Stetina had worked with Keller for a second chase group, Keller going one second better than the Canyon veteran at the line, just 47 and 48 seconds behind Vermeulen

Swenson finished second last year, outsprinting Freeburn and Vermeulen. This year Vermeulen's runner-up spot was his third podium at SBT GRVL, having gone third to Swenson in 2024 and 2023.

"The king reigns on here at SBT GRVL," Vermeulen said about his rival Swenson. "Got dropped, but managed to finagle my way back into the sprint for second by the end thanks to a great chase group with John Keller and Peter Stetina."

The elite women started five minutes after the men, with the field staying mainly compact for the opening 15 miles. On the 17-mile dirt ascent known as Wahooligan Pass, Sarah Lange (Velocio-Kenda Bicycle) set the tempo with Cecily Decker (PAS Racing) and 2023 winner Villafañe.

The trio were joined on the descent by Danni Shrosbree (Rapha-Argon 18), Kylee Hanel (Cervélo-Maxxis), Paige Onweller (Trek Driftless), two-time winner Lauren De Crescenzo (The Feed-Argonaut-Castelli-Maxxis) and 2024 winner Lauren Stephens (Aegis x LOE), which created the decisive split of the race.

The riders traded attacks, but none took hold until Lange broke away on a gravel descent south of Hayden at mile 80. She carried her momentum into the technical section at Cow Creek, where Villafañe began to close the gap, and Stephens trailed 30 seconds behind with Onweller another 30 seconds back.

"I tried to attack a few times earlier in the race but nothing stuck and our group of 8 kept coming back together. So when I found myself off the front during a lull with 25-30 miles to go, I went for it," Lange said on Instagram.

"When I exited Cow Creek and had 7 miles of pavement back into town, I was told Sofia was solo 30 seconds back. I kept pushing but knew she was gaining on me. I heard someone yell her name and knew I was caught with about 2 miles to go."

Villafañe caught and passed Lange on the tarmac just outside Steamboat Springs and cranked out a six-second gap to ride across the line uncontested in 5:25:01. Stephens finished 42 seconds behind Lange for third, her fifth time on the podium spot at SBT GRVL.

"The last 45 minutes of the race was spicy as we worked hard to chase down Sarah Lange who was on a ripper of a day. I pushed HARD on cow creek, separated myself from the chasers and made contact in the last two miles of the race," the new two-time winner said on her Instagram account.

Women’s defending champ Melisa Rollins, who has been away from racing for several months due to arm and wrist injuries, finished 20th. 2025 men’s winner Brendan Wertz did not line up as he was still recovering from a crash at Lost & Found gravel in California two weeks ago.

Last year SBT GRVL had separate race days for elites and amateurs, with the elite fields starting and finishing in Hayden. All race routes returned to downtown Steamboat Springs this year, featuring safety enclosures for elite categories and a black course team support and nutrition aid station at mile 63 at the Hayden Gun Range, which also served as a spectator zone.

Results

Richard Carapaz and Ben Healy were confirmed today to lead EF Education-EasyPost at this year's Tour de France, stacked with ample climbing and difficult transitional stages which hit the bull's-eye for the squad's objectives for stage victories.

Danes Kasper Asgreen and Michael Valgren, who both have stage wins at Grand Tours, young Frenchman Alex Baudin, former USPro road champion Sean Quinn and first-time Tour riders Max Walker and Georg Steinhauser round out the eight-rider roster for EF Education-EasyPost.

Healy looks to be aggressive again this year in pursuit of stage victories, where the Irishman succeeded last year on a prosperous breakaway ride that netted the yellow jersey for two days and a top 10 overall. Carapaz, who has stage wins at all three Grand Tours, said his ambition was to focus on individual stages and a second KOM title. Both riders will face ample competition from rival teams during the three-week race.

"We have a versatile team, and that ultimately helps a lot with the team's ambitions. The general classification will depend heavily on how the race circumstances unfold. I want to go after stage wins and could try to repeat winning the mountains jersey," road captain Carapaz said in a team announcement on Monday.

Carapaz has had a bumpy path to a fifth Tour de France appearance, his last outing in two years ago when he showcased his climbing talents with the mountain classification title and earning his only stage win, so far, on a summit finish to Superdévoluy. He missed the 2025 Tour due to gastrointestinal issues.

A former two-time GC podium finisher at the Giro d'Italia, with the overall win in 2019, the Ecuadorian star recently had surgery to mend a serious saddle sore that disrupted his 2026 season, but most recently finished second overall at Tour de Suisse.

"The Tour is a race that is simply the best in the world. The top riders are there, and it's surrounded by an atmosphere of the absolute highest level. Just being there is already a win for me," the understated Carapaz added.

While Healy had a breakout season last year, but he missed this season's Spring Classics due to a fractured sacrum suffered in a crash ahead of the early-season Itzulia Basque Country. He used the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to build fitness, pulling out with two days to go due to sickness.

"I've had a spring with some bad luck, but I'm in good shape and ready to race. I just want to be up front and in a fight for a stage win, maybe even two. There are a lot of hard transitional stages this year, so I think there'll be plenty of opportunities for breaks," he said in the team's pre-Tour press release.

"I have had a good prep. I did an altitude camp, which I was able to do the full block of, and then Dauphiné as a prep race – even though I got sick, and was able to get back into training fairly quickly. And yeah, some heat work in Mallorca.

"I will just have to race the same way [as last year], with an air of unpredictability. Even last year people kind of knew who I was and I was still able to do it. So nothing's going to change really – just going to try and rinse and repeat."

Like the team leaders, several of the other riders have had physical setbacks this year - Asgreen with a broken collarbone, Quinn with recurring knee pain - but 25-year-old Baudin has been healthy and consistent with nine top 10s, plus the learning curve from his eye-opening first Tour under his belt. The Frenchman gained confidence as well with a solo breakaway to win stage 1 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and defending the leader's jersey through stage 6.

"The team gave me a lot of opportunities this year, and I was able to take them and be present. Having the role of leader – in Basque Country, in the Ardennes, and then at the Dauphiné – that's a lot of experience. We're going to chase stages, and I think a few of them suit me well personally.

"It'll depend a bit on how the earlier racing goes with the GC leaders and everything, but stage 6, and then maybe stages 9 and 10 are the ones I am most excited about. And then a few others in the third week – the final week of the Tour is always really open and a bit unpredictable."

Competing at his sixth Tour de France, Asgreen has four podiums at the race including a stage win in 2023. He reiterated that the team was focused on the day-to-day work to get to the front in support of Carapaz and Healy.

"First of all, the goal is trying to get a stage win for us. I'd love to get out there myself, of course – that's always fun in the breakaways. It's about supporting the team. Alex is going super well, and Richie seems to be going well for the climbing stages," he said.

"I'd say 90 percent of cycling's media exposure comes from the Tour. When you win a stage there, the reach you get is so much bigger – the number of people who realise what you've done and what kind of rider you are, it reaches so many more people. So it's incredible for your career."

EF Education-EasyPost roster for the 2026 Tour de France

• Kasper Asgreen (Den)
• Alex Baudin (Fra)
• Richard Carapaz (Col)
• Ben Healy (Ire)
• Sean Quinn (USA)
• Georg Steinhauser (Ger)
• Michael Valgren (Den)
• Max Walker (GBr)

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Paul Seixas and Olav Kooij have both been named by Decathlon CMA CGM for their eight-rider roster at the 2026 Tour de France. Speculation had been swirling for over a week if 19-year-old French talent Seixas would recover enough from a recent crash to make his debut at the Grand Boucle.

There was doubt also about Kooij taking part in his first-ever Tour de France, already a three-time stage winner at the Giro d'Italia at age 24. Now the debutant duo will have leadership roles as part of a line-up with Tiesj Benoot, Aurélien Paret-Peintre, Nicolas Prodhomme, Cees Bol, Daan Hoole and Matthew Riccitello, also making his first appearance at the race.

The confirmation Seixas' recovery was also confirmed today, just five days ahead of the Grand Départ of the Tour in Barcelona, Spain.

"After my crash and withdrawal from the Tour [Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes], I was able to resume my training for the Tour de France almost as usual, adjusting a few sessions due to my injuries. With five days to go before the Grand Départ, I feel ready to give it my all to complete these three weeks and achieve the best possible finish," he said in a team statement.

"I’m not setting a more specific goal because I’m heading into the unknown – I’ve never competed in a race this long and demanding before. I hope to be a key player, continue to improve, and also enjoy myself. This is the race I’ve always dreamed of, and I realize how lucky I am to be able to compete in it so early in my career.”

The team delayed the announcement of their Tour squad until the conclusion of a weekend full of road National Championships, with neither Seixas nor Kooij competing at their respective Nationals. Seixas was healing from a crash on stage 8 at Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes where he suffered major road rash to his forearms and hip. Meanwhile, Kooij delayed the start of his season due to a lingering virus.

Kooij comes into the Tour with three wins this season, but in only nine days of racing, last winning stage 4 at Baloise Belgium Tour two weeks ago,

"My start to the season wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but we managed to stay patient and keep working. The victories I’ve earned in recent weeks, since returning to competition, have really boosted my confidence," Kooij added in the team statement about his selection.

"I know the competition will be fierce since we’ll be racing in the world’s biggest cycling race, but our goals are clear—both for the team and for me: for Paul to finish as high as possible in the overall standings and win at least one sprint stage."

The duo will have support from a large number of Grand Tour veterans, Benoot making his 11th appearance in a three-week race and his first as part of the Decathlon team. Paret-Peintre, Prodhomme and Bol each have sevent Grand Tour appearances.

With his start on stage 1 on July 4 in Barcelona, Paul Seixas, at the age of 19 years, nine months, and 10 days, will set the mark as the youngest rider since 1937 to have been part of the Tour de France.

"We’ve put together a very well-rounded and united team, made up of riders profiles are well-suited to achieving our goals," said Dominique Serieys, general manager and CEO of Decathlon CMA CGM.

"Paul Seixas will be making his Tour de France debut as part of this team, with the goal of achieving the best possible result while focusing on learning. Olav Kooij, who will also be competing in his first Tour France, will have several opportunities to showcase his speed in sprint finishes.

"With this lineup, the team led by Luke Rowe – who will be making his Grand tour debut tour a sports director – will aim for the general classification and will try to secure at least one stage victory whenever the opportunity arises."

Decathlon CMA CGM for the 2026 Tour de France

• Tiesj Benoot (Bel)
• Cees Bol (Ned)
• Daan Hoole (Ned)
• Olav Kooij (Ned)
• Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Fra)
• Nicolas Prodhomme (Fra)
• Matthew Riccitello (USA)
• Paul Seixas (Fra)

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Gabby Traxler (GURU Energy-Basso Bikes) and Carter Nieuwesteeg (Giant Bicycle Canada) won elite titles at Ghost of the Gravel in Water Valley, Alberta, punching their tickets in the 26th qualifier event for the 2026 UCI Gravel World Championships.

Traxler launched a solo attack from a front group of five riders after the opening 48km to finish in 4:34:42. Hanna Johansson of Sweden was 2:46 back in second and Francesca Seal another 2-plus minutes back for third.

Canadian Sidney McGill, the 2024 Pan-American Cyclo-cross champion, had been part of the lead group but faded to seventh place, just over 36 minutes behind her compatriot.

"I pushed hard and went solo for the last 70km. After third and second the past two years, I was very happy to finally get the win," Traxler wrote on Instagram, the Alberta native scoring her first gravel win of the season on home soil.

The 118 kilometres at Ghost of the Gravel featured 90% dirt roads across the foothills near Calgary, with 2,073 metres of elevation gain found on a large clockwise circuit. Early rain made for a wet surface, and Nieuwesteeg called it "the gnarliest conditions I’ve seen to date" on a course used the past two years for the Canadian Gravel Championships.

Nieuwesteeg, who was third overall at BC Bike Race, held off Oskar Stack-Michasiw in a two-up sprint for the elite men's victory, both riders finishing in 3:49:00. Finn Borstmayer then won the sprint for third against Wyatt Gaulke, 11:21 later, for an all-Canadian men's podium.

The men's race saw 12 riders grouped at the front for the first 35 kilometres, which was mainly climbing. Then on a technical descent, splits formed and the podium quartet set off together. Nieuwesteeg and Stack-Michasiw set off together with 40km to go.

"A full day keeping it throttled with Oskar Stack-Michasiw. Pretty sweet to get the win at a UCI World Series event, definitely did not have that in the cards as mentally I’ve been fully in FGG [Fernie Gravel Grind] planning mode for the last couple weeks," Nieuwesteeg wrote on social media. "I guess Gravel World Champs in Australia is now calling."

Gravelking UCI Gravel World Series was the second stop for the series in Canada, taking place on back-to-back weekends with OG Classique in Quebec. The next round of the series will be July 5 in Germany for Hegau Gravel Festival.

Results

Classics star Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) is hopeful that he can wear the yellow jersey again at this year's Tour de France, even if he feels that "nothing is a must anymore" in his highly successful career.

Van der Poel, who has been road World Champion and won Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders three times each, has won two Tour de France stages in his career and wore the yellow jersey for six days in 2021 and four in 2025.

Usually at the Tour, his role is a mixture of going for his own chances on punchy stages and being a lead-out rider de luxe for Jasper Philipsen, but this year, the early challenging stages mean he could have a chance at donning the iconic yellow jersey once more.

Alpecin-Premier Tech aren't favourites for the opening team time trial in Barcelona, but if they can ride well enough to keep Van der Poel in sight of yellow, he could have a chance on the Montjuïc finish on stage 2, or even in a breakaway raid on stage 3, though the second stage seems most suited to him.

"The plan is to stay in the running to potentially go for that yellow jersey again in the days that follow," he told NOS at the Tour de Suisse, his return to road racing before the Tour.

"But you have riders like Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, and Remco Evenepoel. If they set their sights on it, then it will be very difficult. But we are going to try."

Whether it's possible or not for Van der Poel to move into yellow will probably be known quite quickly after the TTT when the first time gaps are clear, and he admitted that was the team's first challenge.

"Hopefully we can spring a surprise, but it will be difficult," he said. "We have invested a lot of time in it, though. And with the riders we have, we should be able to set a good time.

The first sprint stage for Jasper Philipsen will not come until stage 5, by which time the GC gaps will be too big for a sprinter to grab yellow, and without a climber, the opening days are likely the only time for Alpecin to wear yellow, which Van der Poel the obvious option.

However, whilst he clearly would like to wear yellow if the chance arises, Van der Poel was clear that he felt no external pressure to succeed at the Tour, so complete and impressive are his palmarès already.

"Everything is a bonus. Nothing is a must anymore. My career is already more than successful. That makes it really fun," he said.

"Of course, I still put pressure on myself, I want to win as many beautiful and big races as possible, but if that doesn't happen, I will be at peace with that too."

It may be hard to top last year, where Philipsen won stage 1 and Van der Poel stage 2 with the pair sharing yellow for most of the first week, but he can at least hope to finish the race rather than be taken out by illness in the final week. And if his recent form at the Tour de Suisse is anything to go by, where he very nearly beat Tadej Pogačar in a TT, he will arrive at the Tour strong and confident.

"Last year was very good, until I got pneumonia," Van der Poel said. "Hopefully, I can be in the same form at the start this year, go for stage wins, and show some great things."

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UAE Team Emirates-XRG have confirmed the team that will support Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France as he chases a record-equalling fifth yellow jersey victory.

There were no major surprises in UAE's team line-up, confirmed on Monday, but once again the team has assembled an extremely strong group to support Pogačar, including former Grand Tour podium finishers and workhorse rouleurs for the flatter stages and TTT.

For the mountains, Pogačar can rely on the ultra talented Mexican prodigy Isaac del Toro, as well as Grand Tour veteran and long time lieutenant Adam Yates. Brandon McNulty is also back for his third Tour after missing out on selection last year.

In terms of power, which will be especially important for the opening team time trial, UAE have the strong Belgian duo of Tim Wellens and Florian Vermeersch, newly-minted German TT champion Nils Politt, and the understated but important Felix Großschartner, riding his 12th Grand Tour.

Pogačar praised the strength of the team that UAE have assembled as he tries to win a third consecutive Tour, and fifth of his career.

"I feel good, I’m looking forward to racing, and I know I’ll have a fantastic group of teammates and staff around me," he said. "We have a lot of confidence in each other and have built up a lot of experience together over the years.

"There will be strong rivals, difficult stages and many other unpredictable moments, but we’re ready to give everything."

In terms of experience. Del Toro is the only Tour debutant, but this will be his third Grand Tour after almost winning the Giro d'Italia last year. A strong contender himself, the Mexican is expected to work primarily in support of Pogačar, but is capable of a strong individual result too.

In terms of absences, Monday's announcement confirmed that João Almeida will not be in action, missing his second Grand Tour of the year as he deals with a mysterious lack of form.

Marc Soler is still out injured, and Jhonatan Narváez raced the Giro instead of the Tour, whilst there was no place for Pavel Sivakov or Mikkel Bjerg.

This mean's that the line-up for 2026 is fairly different to the team that joined Pogačar in France in 2025, with Politt, Yates and Wellens the only common denominators.

Ever Tour is important for Pogačar and UAE, but there is added significance to this year's edition, as he has the chance to win a fifth Tour title, and join the small club of five-time winners that currently contains Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain.

In preparation, Pogačar has won the Tour de Romandie in Tour de Suisse in recent months, adding to his four Classics wins from the spring, including his maiden Milan-San Remo victory.

"The Tour de France is always the biggest challenge of the season and also the race that motivates us the most," he said. "Every year, you arrive at the start knowing that anything can happen over three weeks, and that’s what makes it so special."

Most of Pogačar's teammates have been training at altitude to prepare for the Tour, but the Slovenian had to rejig his plans to spend time at home after his parter Urška Žigart suffered and injury at the Tour de Suisse. He is still expected to arrive in Barcelona on Tuesday.

"We’ve prepared really well as a team, everyone has worked incredibly hard, and now we’re excited to finally get started in Barcelona," he said.

"It’s a privilege to wear these colours at the Tour de France, and we’ll do our best to make ourselves, the team and the fans proud."

UAE Team Emirates-XRG for the 2026 Tour de France

• Tadej Pogačar
• Isaac del Toro
• Felix Großschartner
• Brandon McNulty
• Nils Politt
• Florian Vermeersch
• Tim Wellens
• Adam Yates

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A few weeks ago, after he had won the Giro d'Italia, I wrote about how Jonas Vingegaard had probably had his strongest Tour de France preparation yet, but we were still none the wiser about what that means in comparison to Tadej Pogačar.

That's a view I still stand by, but as we approach the start of the Tour de France, the more I see people asserting that Vingegaard simply has no chance against Pogačar, and the more I think that's a really wild assumption to make.

Yes, it's true that we have little to go off in terms of an accurate comparison between the two, and if we look at the last few years, Pogačar has always been much better at the Tour. But you don't have to go back particularly far to remember when it was Vingegaard who was crushing Pogačar – as much as we like to make it out, their rivalry has never been one sided.

Vingegaard is one of the many riders whose status suffers because he is racing in the era of Pogačar, where what was a successful career 10 years ago now feels less so against the yardstick of the Slovenian, but underestimate him at your peril.

He's a four-time Grand Tour winner, has had his most setback-free run-in in years and is coming off a Giro d'Italia where he won with ease, hardly having to exert himself to claim the GC and complete his Grand Tour set.

If his assertions are true, he often feels better in the second Grand Tour of the season, so he should be coming into this Tour de France feeling really, really good. And we know what a really good Vingegaard can do to Pogačar, he can beat him.

I know it's the popular narrative to say that Pogačar is unbeatable, that any race he starts is foregone conclusion, often used as a tool to berate him and his dominance, and I'll concede that often that prediction is right. But not always, and often not when it comes to his perennial rival Vingegaard, the man who can push him further than anyone else in stage races, and probably one of the only riders Pogačar feels truly challenged by.

This Tour is not a foregone conclusion, and suggesting at this stage that Vingegaard has no chance of going up against Pogačar feels shortsighted, defeatist, inaccurate even. As I said, you can't write him off.

However – and there is a however – there is one thing that is threatening to muddy Vingegaard's otherwise crystal clear run-in to this Tour, and that is the ongoing uncertainty and blows to his team line-up.

He already lost two of Visma-Lease a Bike's most trusted workhorses when Christophe Laporte and Wout van Aert were ruled out of the race before selection was made, and even though Visma officially announced their line-up last week, we're still not entirely sure who will join Vingegaard on the start line this Saturday.

The main source of uncertainty centres around Edoardo Affini, who had a nasty crash at the Italian National Championships, and though Visma have been quiet about his condition, just saying he will be monitored, the rumours are that his injury was quite nasty, and replacements were being put on standby over the weekend.

In a normal year, losing Affini may not be a huge blow, but when the team have already foregone Van Aert and Laporte, starting the Tour – which opens with a crucial TTT no less – without Affini too would feel like a depleted and weakened team especially for the chaotic and flatter first week.

In terms of possible replacements – remember they have already drafted in Davide Piganzoli to fill in for Van Aert, a super strong rider but certainly not like for like – Visma are not flush for options. They have already been slightly on the back foot this year, after Simon Yates' retirement caught them by surprise and left them with a gap on their roster, and now that, various injuries, and the complications of targetting two Grand Tours in the space of a few months is taking its toll.

If Affini cannot start, the most likely replacement at this point sounds like Bart Lemmen, a talented climber who helped shepherd Vingegaard to Giro victory a few weeks ago. Lemmen is a strong rider, particularly on the harder days, but he is not a fill in for Affini – he won't be riding for hours on the front, or dragging the team around the TTT, that's just not the type of rider he is.

Vingegaard could end up with a very climber-heavy support team, which may sound like the best tactic to try and overcome Pogačar in the climbs, but in truth will probably cost him more on the flat that it will win him in the mountains. If there's one thing that Pogačar's brute force racing can do, it's find a rival's weakness and exploit it.

And so Vingegaard's fantastic run-in, as it often has, hits a hurdle. Sometimes that hurdle has come earlier, with season-derailing crashes, and sometimes later, like now with his team selection up in the air just days before the race.

Fortunately, a weaker team is likely a much easier issue to overcome than broken bones, but it still could prove costly to Vingegaard. It's true that the Dane himself is looking really strong this year, and that he is – has always been – more than capable of matching or beating Pogačar when he's at his best.

But to be at his best, and to go up against the most dominant rider of his generation, Vingegaard needs every tiny thing to go right. So whilst his form and fitness look stronger than ever, and should not be underestimated when he and Pogačar go head to head over the next few months, those tiny things and small details could be the difference between finally overcoming his great rival once more, or retroactively confirming the narrative that the Slovenian was always going to win this race.

So no, the conclusion isn't foregone, and this Tour is not a one horse race. But a lot needs to start going right for Vingegaard if he wants to change that conclusion.

The world’s biggest bike race deserves world-class coverage. Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! Find out more.

Seth Dunwoody outsprinted defending champion Rory Townsend (Unibet Rose Rockets) to win the elite men’s title at the Irish Road Championships in Cong, County Mayo, on Sunday.

The 20-year-old rider for the Bahrain Victorious Development team claimed the biggest victory of his career, after finishing a very close second at U23 Paris-Roubaix and U23 In Flanders Fields - In Ieper/Kattekoers earlier this year.

High winds and several tough climbs split the peloton in the early stages of the 171km race, with the initial group of 20 riders being slowly whittled down throughout the day.

The final selection of four riders, with Dunwoody, Townsend, Finn Crocket (VolkerWessels) and Conn McDunphy (APS) pulled away in the final 28km lap.

The four sped towards the line with Townsend launching his sprint early with 200m to go, but Dunwoody was able to come over the top and take the win.  A disappointed Townsend was second while Crockett dropped McDunphy to round out the podium.

“I've had a lot of close run-ins this year in the big races, which has been tough, but to open the account at nationals is incredible,” Dunwoody told Cycling Ireland. 

“I wasn't expecting Rory to go so early. I really, really had to dig deep, giving up wasn't an option, to be honest. It's been a tough year. I lost my granny over Christmas, which was super tough. I really, really wanted to win a big race for her. And then second in Roubaix and Ghent was really tough, but I knew I have big plans for the future."

Dunwoody remembered Shane O’Brien, a 17-year-old junior Irish cyclist who died in a training accident a few weeks ago.

“I think, on all Irish cyclists, and especially being good friends with [Shane’s brother] Liam. It was tough.”

“So, yeah, giving up wasn't an option, you know? I'm not just doing it for myself or riding the bike for myself, you know? I have my whole family down here, a lot of supporters, a lot of people backing me, and I mainly do it for them. I just enjoy riding the bike for fun, and to have so many people in my corner means a lot.”

Results

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Fred Wright claimed his second elite men's road race title at the British Road Championships, outsprinting Lewis Askey (NSN) and Connor Swift (Netcompany Ineos) by a wheel in a tense three-rider finish. The Pinarello-Q36.5 rider's only two professional victories have both been national titles, the first one coming in 2023.

Swift bridged up to a four-rider break, which included Wright and Askey on the first of the five local laps in Aberystwyth. The quintet, which also included Mattie Dodd (Ineos Grenadiers Racing Academy), Elliot Rowe (Visma-Lease a Bike Devo Team) worked well together to build an unassailable lead of almost three minutes with 11 kilometres to go.

At that point cooperation stopped, with Askey putting in a dig on the climb to drop Dodd and Rowe, before making another attempt to escape on the descent. However, the trio was still together with Askey leading with two kilometres to go.

Wright took over the front with 200 metres to go, as the trio spread across the road, speeding to the line.

Speaking after the podium, Wright said: “It was a typical National Championships. I attacked from the start, and it was full gas racing until a select group formed. We take chunks out of each other for as long as we can, and I was happy to make that group. I just slowly whittled it down and played my cards well in the end.”

He added that he was "trying not to think about" claiming the striped jersey again, 

 “The year I had in the stripes was really special. As soon as you are not in the stripes, you really miss it. I was trying not to think about it too much in the last 10km. I had to just think normally and race without going too crazy. It’s such a special thing. I plan to take these to the Tour.”

Rowe beat Dodd to take fourth place and so secure the U23 title.

How it unfolded

The 187.1km course around the Ceredigion region of Wales featured a challenging 2586m of altitude gain, and as is typical of British nationals, a large field of 140 riders went into battle from the off.

The race was lively from the get-go, but a nine-rider group was able to forge clear, though they were not given much rope by the main peloton, which held them at 45 seconds with 150km still to cover. A secondary wave of attacks launched after that as more riders sought to bridge to the front of the race, leaving the peloton to allow the leaders to eke out a slightly larger gap as the bunch settled briefly, one minute behind.

A lead group of six held the front of the race for around 40 kilometres, but with 116km to go, the peloton made contact, and former champion Wright was the first to catch the breakaway. He joined their ranks as the peloton dangled a handful of seconds behind. The race situation remained volatile after that, with riders attacking and dropping, and it was all change again as a large group of favourites moved clear and with 90km to go.

They had built a lead of almost a minute over the chasing bunch, but the race was all over the road, both at the front and in the peloton, with groups strung out into long lines. At the head of the race, the large group split and with 60 kilometres to go, a group of five strong riders had built a significant 1:25 gap over the main peloton. This group featured Wright, along with Lewis Askey (NSN Pro Cycling), Mattie Dodd (Ineos Grenadiers Racing Academy), Elliot Rowe (Visma-Lease a Bike Devo Team) and Jed Smithson (Team Jayco-AlUla).

The group arrived on the local lap in Aberystwyth for five laps of the circuit, but Smithson was struggling with the heat, needing a bottle but unable to get one and dropped from the group. Former national champion Connor Swift (NetCompany Ineos) bridged up to the lead group, and from there, the race entered a steadier state, with the five leading riders working well together and steadily building on their lead heading into the final 50kms.

A chase group of 7 were the only riders left in contention with the peloton drifting out to three minutes behind the head of the race. The chasers were not able to make an impression on the lead group’s advantage but would continue to work hard for placements and podium spots in the U23 category, which would still be at stake once the lead group had crossed the line.

With 21km to go, the first attack came from the lead group, Mattie Dodd attacking on a gradient to put space between himself and the rest of the group, with only Wright able to stay with him, and Lewis Askey forced to chase. They regrouped shortly afterwards, but the gloves were off, with Swift the next to launch, pursued by Wright and Askey. It was a straight punch-up after that, with Askey the next to strike, as the race headed back into the town centre ahead of the final lap.

The five riders worked well together, pushing the gap to 2:50 with 11 kilometres to go. Games in the front group started on a kilometre later, with Askey launching the first salvo. Attacks continued, Wright on the steep climb which dropped Dodd and Rowe, and then Askey on the descent as he flew past Swift.

But the trio was still together, with Askey pinned to the front with two kilometres to go. In the final kilometre, another Swift attack was shut down by Askey as Wright slotted in the front with 200 metres to go.

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24-year-old Visma-Lease a Bike racer Lieke Nooijen claimed the biggest victory of her career to date as she outpowered Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime) in an excitingly unpredictable Dutch Nationals elite women's road race.

Third was Loes Adegeest (Lidl-Trek), with Nooijen's Visma teammate Mischa Bredewold and Femke de Vries (SD Worx-Protime) just off the podium in fourth and fifth.

“I know I am in good form, and to bring that out today… That is really wonderful,” Nooijen told Wielerflits after the finish, before praising her team's collective work.

"Femke de Vries and I were in a good attack a few times, Marianne Vos joined in, and Maud Oudeman rode a super strong race,” she added.

“At one point, there were still five or six of us in the first group. That is really impressive, and in the end, I was the one who got away with Femke Markus . I am very happy that I was able to finish it off.”

How it unfolded

The ultra-difficult Dutch course featured, just like in the remainder of the races, the two main climbs of Van Randwijckweg (1.2 km at 6.5%) and Oude Holleweg (1 km at 7%). Although Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) was not present, other top names like Lorena Wiebes and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), not to mention all-time great Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), all but ensured a very exciting race.

Perhaps given there was so much firepower in the race, for much of the opening part of the course, none of the multiple attacks managed to stick, with the big favourites content to watch and wait for an opportunity. Coming into the final 50 kilometres of a 117-kilometre course, the high pace and blizzard of little digs failing to succeed ensured that the peloton was far smaller than when it set out from Nijmegen midway through Sunday afternoon.

The first important move to actually get enough of a margin to become a break came when De Vries, Adegeest and Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime) opened up a small gap, with De Vries and Adegeest pushing on when Vinke began to struggle. Eventually, the leading duo were caught but that only sparked yet more efforts, notably by the very active de Vries.

The move that eventually gained real traction for Visma came courtesy of Nooijen, taking off with Markus to push open their advantage to around a minute. Nooijen attempted to shake off her closest rival on the Van Randwijckweg, to no avail, and the two non-sprinters were forced to fight it out for gold on the line.

As Wielerflits reported, the sprint began when Markus opened up hostilities a full 800 metres from the line, only to be caught by Nooijen, who in turn launched a very early acceleration. That long-distance move proved just enough to contain Markus and allow Nooijen to go two better than her already promising bronze medal in Wednesday's time trial - and clinch the win.

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Team Bahrain-Victorious announced their line-up for the Tour de France on Sunday afternoon, with a focus on stage hunting along with the aim of breaking into the top ten on the general classification.

The eight riders selected balance experience on the road with options for every type of stage profile.

The team's GC campaign will centre around Antonio Tiberi. The Italian will make his debut at the race, and will aim to break into the top ten; his previous best result in a Grand Tour overall classification is a 5th place finish at the 2024 Giro d'Italia.

In his retirement year, Damiano Caruso will ride his final Tour de France with the possibility of going for a Grand Tour hat-trick, the 38-year-old Italian veteran looking to add a Tour stage to his victories at the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España.

Seeking out such wins are three-time stage winner Matej Mohorič, who will target rolling and classics-style stages, in-form climber Lenny Martinez, who spent time in the polka dot jersey at last year's Tour and who impressed with his form at last week's Tour de Suisse, and experienced fast man Phil Bauhaus, who will hope to be present in the eight stages forecast to end in a bunch sprint.

Additionally, 22-year-old Belgian Vlad Van Mechelen will make his debut at the race, hoping to follow up on his impressive breakaway ride at the recent Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Tour, where he finished third on stage 2.

Rounding out the line-up, in support of their leaders, are Australian climber Rob Stannard, and 35-year-old Polish rider Kamil Gradek, who has been named as road captain.

The Tour de France begins on Saturday July 4 in Barcelona. Read our preview of the top contenders for this year's maillot jaune here.

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