April 7, 2026
The gaps in GC have forced a rank order of the top riders but some had a poor showing yesterday and will want to prove themseleves out on the road. When the riders leave Pamplona, they will have 3,200 meters of climbing across 164 km of racing with the finish up near the caves of Mendukilo. There are two intermediate sprints on course, the first is in Lekunberri with 70 km to go, the second is a sprint with bonus seconds available in Irutzun at 41 km from the finish. Although there is plenty of climbing throughout the day, the race should mostly stay together until the San Miguel de Aralar with 29 km to go. The category 1 climb is 9.4 km at 7.4% and tops out 19 km from the finish. The next 16 km are downhill to Alli where the rise to the finish begins. If someone tries to attack from San Miguel de Aralar, they will need to have saved something for the climb up to Mendukilo Kobazuloa because the last 3 km go up in steps, averaging 7% across the distance and should prove to be quite explosive.
Race Summary
The temperature was much more seasonable at 20C (68F) as the bunch rolled out of Pamplona. When the racing got underway, a group of seven broke clear and it was a strong one. Bruno Armirail of Visma-Lease a Bike was present as was Ethan Hayter of Soudal Quickstep, Raúl García Pierna of Movistar, Frank van den Broek of Picnic-PostNL, Joan Bou of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Iker Mintegi of Euskatel-Euskadi, and Adrián Fajardo of Burgos-Burpellet BH. With 82 km to go on the ascent of the Zuarrarrate, Decathlon CMA CGM had brought the gap down from a maximum of 3 minutes to just 90 seconds.
Over the top of Zuarrarrate and down a perfectly smooth and twisting ribbon of road, it was Hayter that took the first intermediate sprint at the bottom in Lekunberri. The race continued in a bit of a holding pattern but the bunch increased the pace slightly over the top of the Aldatz which brought the gap down to 50 seconds with 61 km to go. Decathlon CMA CGM decided to notch the speed back a little to allow the break more of an advantage before the bonus sprint in Irutzun. As a result, the gap grew out to 1 minute 40 seconds down the gorge road along the Rio Larraun towards Irutzun.
Hayter nabbed the sprint points and bonus seconds at the RedBull KM with 41km to go and the break set their sights on getting to the San Miguel de Aralar with as much of a gap as possible. Positioning intensified in the bunch behind with 6 km to go to the bottom of the climb. When the break made the tight right turn onto San Miguel de Aralar, their lead was still 90 seconds but the peloton were charging into the gap.
Lidl-Trek won the battle for the front and started the climb in the best position. Within about 500 meters however, Decathlon CMA CGM worked their forward to take over the pace setting. The effort was committed and the bunch strung out, getting reduced very quickly. With over 6.5 km to the top, the last teammate of Paul Seixas pulled off and the youngster went on the attack. Seixas started to ride away and any potential chase from behind was splitting apart. In a matter of 400 meters, Seixas caught and passed the remaining members of the break and was off the front of the bike race alone. Florian Lipowitz and Primož Roglič of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG, Cian Uijtdebroeks of Movistar, and Ion Izagirre of Cofidis formed a chase group but with 3 km still to climb, they had lost 30 seconds to Seixas and the cohesion seemed to be ebbing. The chase swelled which only hampered their momentum with the inclusion of Clément Champoussin of XDS-Astana, Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek, and Ben Tulett of Visma-Lease a Bike joining the group.
The gap got as high as 50 seconds until del Toro decided it was time to apply his best effort. The Mexican managed to trim 5 seconds off before the gap went out again. Lipowitz tried to break free of the chase group but by the top, he was 55 seconds behind Seixas and about to get caught by the remnants of the chase group. The favorites group split on the descent and by the bottom with 5 km to go, the first chase group of Lipowitz, Uijtdebroeks, Izagirre, Skjelmose, and Alex Baudin of EF-Education EasyPost were 1 minute 10 seconds down with the del Toro group even further behind.
Seixas started the climb to the finish and was romping around the first corner when he had to check up to avoid a police motor bike that had stopped. A man was bleeding on the ground after having presumably been hit by the vehicle. Seixas continued on, putting even more time into everyone else. He crossed the line and didn't think about celebrating until after the clock had stopped, to preserve as much of a margin as he could. Behind, at 1 km to go, Roglič, Tulett, and Champoussin made contact with the Lipowitz group and second place would be fought out in a reduced GC group sprint. Uijtdebroeks lifted the pace with 200 meters go with Skjelmose and Baudin each trying to get around. The road was so narrow that Uijtdebroeks could just straight line the turns and shut the door. Uijtdebroeks lost a bit of power in the last 50 meters and it was Skjelmose that snuck through to take second place in front of Roglič who grabbed the final bonus seconds on the line with Uijtdebroeks in fourth.
Through the dominance of Seixas in the first two days, Roglič, who sits second overall, is already nearly 2 minutes behind. Lipowitz is in third, a further 9 seconds down. The rest of the field will have to get creative in the stages to come if they want to bring any time back on Seixas.