The escapees Træen and Pedersen take the yellow and the stage of the Tour in Foix

The Danish cyclist Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) won this Tuesday the fourth stage of the 2026 Tour de France, held between Carcassonne and Foix over 181.9 kilometres, by winning with absolute clarity over his breakaway companions in a sprint that was not such, with the Spanish Raúl García Pierna (Movistar Team) third and the Norwegian Torstein Træen (Uno-X Mobility) positioning himself as the new leader of the provisional general.

The stage was marked by the large escape in which four Spaniards got involved, among them the two representatives of the Movistar Team Pablo Castrillo and Raúl García Pierna, who once that escape was selected were two of the protagonists in the last kilometers with their attacks.

But without a doubt the great protagonist of the day, beyond the stage winner, is the Norwegian Torstein Træen, who in his second participation in the Tour de France, and after being ninth overall in La Vuelta 2025, takes the lead with a juicy margin of almost 8 minutes over the big favorites.

The victory was decided between the survivors of a large breakaway that ended up making a success of their adventure after the peloton of favorites, led by UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Team Visma | Lease a Bike, gave up the chase when he realized that none of the leading men posed an immediate threat to the fight for the Tour. The escapees’ lead time exceeded 12 minutes and allowed them to compete for both the stage and the yellow jersey.

Because in the front group the work of the Norwegian Torstein Træen stood out, very eager to consolidate a sufficient advantage to take the lead in the general classification, while Lidl-Trek played its tricks with up to three riders. The attacks continued in the last 15 kilometers, with a very combative Pablo Castrillo (Movistar Team), who launched several offensives and was designated the most combative rider of the stage, and with Raúl García Pierna (Movistar Team), who also tried his luck.

Thus, the resolution was left to a short sprint in which Mads Pedersen clearly imposed his enormous speed to add the 61st victory of his professional career and the third in the Tour de France, after those achieved in the 2022 and 2023 editions.

His teammate, the American Quinn Simmons, signed the double for Lidl-Trek and the Spanish Raúl García Pierna signed a brilliant third place, while Træen crossed the finish line eighth, enough to don the yellow jersey. Pablo Castrillo finished tenth after a very active stage.

The general classification now takes a turn. Træen leads the French round with American Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost) second, while Czech Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) is third at 3:50. Among the big favorites, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) falls to fourth place, 7:53 behind the new leader, with Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) fifth at the same time as the Slovenian. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) occupies ninth position, at 8:20, Pablo Castrillo rises to twenty-fourth (+11:22) and Raúl García Pierna is twenty-fifth (+11:34).

This Wednesday the Tour will face its fifth stage, of 158.3 kilometers between Lannemezan and Pau, in terrain conducive to a new breakaway or, if the sprinters make their teams print high speed, perfect for a massive volata despite the Cote de Baleix (3rd category, 1.3 kilometers at 7.5 percent) that could be an obstacle for those larger ‘sprinters’.