Pogacar and Vingegaard resume their fight for the Tour throne in Barcelona

The Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) will seek his fifth Tour de France from July 4 to 26 to equal the historical record of victories, while the Dane Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) will try to recover the yellow jersey in an edition that will once again bring together the elite of world cycling and in which riders such as the Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), the German Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Spanish Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) or Frenchman Paul Seixas (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) will try to alter the order established in the ‘Grande Boucle’.

The 113th edition of the French round will start in an unprecedented way in Barcelona and will cover 3,320.7 kilometers divided into 21 stages. After an inaugural team time trial in the Catalan capital, the course will become tougher until the battle for the general classification is concentrated in the Pyrenees and, especially, in some decisive Alps, with the double consecutive passage through the Alpe d’Huez as a great test for the candidates for the yellow jersey.

All eyes once again point to Pogacar and Vingegaard, absolute protagonists of the Tour during the last five years. Between them they have shared the last six editions of the race and they will start again as the great references of a peloton that will seek to dethrone them.

The leader of UAE Team Emirates-XRG faces a historic opportunity. At 27 years old, he can become the fifth cyclist with five Tours under his belt, equaling Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. At his side will be the Mexican Isaac del Toro, one of the great revelations of last year and a candidate for the white jersey, who will face his debut in the Tour.

In front will be Jonas Vingegaard, who arrives reinforced after conquering the Vuelta a España 2025 and the Giro d’Italia 2026 and with the aim of recovering the throne of the French race, and arrives convinced of the potential of a formation designed to respond to the power of the UAE, with the winner of La Vuelta Sepp Kuss as great support in the high mountains.

The great collective alternative is presented by Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, which will once again rely on the dual leadership of Evenepoel and Lipowitz. The Belgian, third in the 2024 Tour, and the German, third in 2025, will share stripes after having prepared a good part of the season together.

Among those who aspire to take a step forward is also the Spaniard Juan Ayuso, who will face a new opportunity to compete with the best vueltomaniacs in the world now as leader of the Lidl-Trek, in addition to the Frenchman Paul Seixas, the great sensation of French cycling despite being barely 19 years old.

The Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale rider will make his debut in the ‘Grande Boucle’, becoming one of the peloton’s great attractions after a brilliant start to the season. Of course, he suffered a serious fall on June 13, 2026 during the seventh stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and suffered abrasions, burns and bruises on his elbows, knees and sides, which forced him to retire and now it is doubtful whether he will be able to withstand the strength of Pogacar, Vingegaard and company.

The fight for the green jersey is more open, with the Belgian Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), the Belgian Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), the Eritrean Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and the Dane Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) as the main candidates for the points classification.

The polka dot jersey also promises an intense battle on a course full of great climbs, with the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), the Frenchman Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and the Frenchman Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) among the specialists called to fight in the mountains, while the youth classification points to another attractive duel with Del Toro and Seixas as two of its great references.

With an unprecedented departure from Barcelona and a route designed to reward the best climbers and climbers, the Tour de France 2026 once again presents a top-level line-up, with Pogacar in search of a place among the greatest legends of this sport and a large group of rivals determined to prevent him from continuing to expand his reign.