June 17, 2026
For GC riders, the Tour de Suisse is the last opportunity to hone their form ahead of the Tour de France which starts in Spain in just over 2 weeks. Although Suisse has been shortened from eight days to five, there is still something for everyone with finishes suiting puncheurs, sprinters, and climbers. Day one starts and finishes in Sondrio, Italy on a 144 km route which takes the riders out and back along the Addo River in the Valtellina. The first 55 km are flat as the riders head West towards Lake Como but there are three spikes over the subsequent 50 km which will raise the heart rate. In that span, there will also be the Tissot Sprints, a set of two sprints separated by 1 km with 3, 2, and 1 bonus seconds available at each. The last 25 km are quite difficult and perhaps hard enough to tease out riders looking at the race overall. There are three climbs to tackle including the San Giovanni which is 1.1 km at 7.5%, the Ponte in Valtellina which is 1.4 km at 9%, and the 1.1 km, 11.5% Bordighi which summits just 5 km from the finish back in Sondrio.
Highlighted Riders:
Sprinters and Puncheurs - Jhonatan Narváez, Mathieu van der Poel, Kaden Groves, Paul Lapeira, Luke Lamperti, Romain Grégoire, Axel Laurance, Thibau Nys, Orluis Aular, Corbin Strong, Alberto Dainese, Michael Matthews, Casper Van Uden, Matthew Brennan, Julian Alaphilippe
GC -Tadej Pogačar, Matthew Riccitello, Richard Carapaz, Antonio Tiberi, Lenny Martinez, Andrew August, Jarno Widar, Enric Mas, Primož Roglič, Mikel Landa
Race Summary
The unusually warm Spring has continued and the sun was baking the riders as they set off from Sondrio down the valley with temperatures as high as 29C (84F). It was an active start but only Fredrik Dversnes of Uno-X Mobility and Cedric Beullens of Lotto Intermarché were able to make the early move of the day. When we got to see live images with 83 km to go, about 500 meters from the top of the first categorized climb of the day of the Buglio in Monte, UAE-XRG were hammering on the front with Tim Wellens as if it were the last climb. GC contender, Antonio Tiberi of Bahrain Victorious was dropped and his teammates were frantically trying to get ice down the back of the Italian rider to cool him down. Beullens was just being caught from the break leaving only Dversnes up the road with a 90 second lead.
When the peloton got to the top, only around 50 riders were still in contact with numerous groups spread down the mountain. The rapid pace continued down into the valley and as Dversnes took the Tissot sprints, the gap was just over 1 minute. Tadej Pogačar of UAE-XRG took 2 seconds at the first sprint and accelerated to 2 more seconds at the second sprint. Matthew Riccitello of Decathlon CMA CGM followed to take the last bonus second and they found themselves with a gap to the peloton. Brandon McNulty was there to support Pogačar and the Slovenian called for pace. Alarm bells rang out in the peloton but the problem was that the second sprint was at the base of the 1.1 km, 8% Berbenno di Valtellina which made it that much harder to close the gap. A few riders sprang forward to latch on but it wasn't long before Pogačar himself got a gap was in between the favorites group and Dversnes.
Dversnes was caught by Pogačar with 70 km to go and it was a mad scramble behind to organize some sort of chase. Dversnes hung on for about 700 meters before being distanced leaving Pogačar at the head of a race that had completely exploded. Seven riders formed the first chase group along the terraced plateau with grape vines and old stone houses on either side of the road. At the start of the 4 km, 7% climb to Triangia with 65 km remaining, Pogačar had 40 seconds on the group containing Riccitello, McNulty, Richard Carapaz of EF-Education EasyPost, Paul Double of Jayco AlUla, Andrea Bagioli and Mathias Vacek of Lidl-Trek, and Primož Roglič of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe. At the top with 61.5 km to go, the chase group had doubled in size but they were losing time, now 1 minute 10 seconds behind.
Bagioli was the only one riding in the chase group which continued to lose time. With 52 km to go, Carapaz had enough and went out into the void between the chase group and Pogačar. The chase lost all cohesion and disintegrated. 5 km later, Carapaz was 1 minute 30 seconds down on Pogačar and sitting around 25 seconds ahead of third group on the road who were still fighting amongst themselves.
By the top of Teglio with 32.5 km to go, Pogačar had 2 minutes 20 seconds on Carapaz and nearly 4 minutes to the rest of the chasers who had swelled to around 20 riders and were as disorganized as ever. Bagioli, local of Sondrio, went on the attack on the descent from Teglio. He knew ever corner and had built 40 seconds on the rest of the chase by the bottom. The problem for Bagioli was that Carapaz and Pogačar were well up the road. When Pogačar reached the top of Ponte in Valtellina with 17 km remaining, he had 2 minutes 20 seconds on Carapaz, 3 minutes 15 seconds on Bagioli, and 4 minutes 30 seconds to the rest of the GC riders.
Pogačar skipped over the Bordighi through throngs of fans watching an absolute obliteration of the Tour de Suisse. The World Champion descended back into the valley to the finish line in Sondrio. Pogačar came into the finish straight with arms up in celebration and no one was within 2 km of him on the road. Carapaz was next in for second place at 2 minutes 14 seconds with Bagioli nipping at his heels, finishing third another 15 seconds back after an inspired ride. Ilan Van Wilder of Soudal Quickstep won the sprint for fourth but only from a group of five riders at 4 minutes 2 seconds. The majority of the peloton will be taking stock tonight to work out what is possible to get from the race after such a thorough beat down.