July 17, 2026
There has been little doubt of the outcome in the last two stages with almost guaranteed bunch sprints but, today, we are thrown back into questioning if it's a day for the break or the GC or both. When the riders leave the start town of Dole, they will have nearly 150 km of flat racing up the Vallée de l'Ognon to establish some type of break. There is very little along the way but for the intermediate sprint Mélisey, home town of Thibaut Pinot, after 138 km. With 56 km to go, the riders reach the first of two climbs of the day, the Col des Croix, which is more of an hors-d'ouvres at 5 km in length at 5%. A short descent and 6 km valley road bring the peloton to the base of the highest mountain in the Southern Vosges. The Ballon d'Alsace is 9 km long at nearly 7% and takes the riders up to 1,200 meters above sea level with incredible views of the Rhine river valley from the top. The next 30 km are all downhill or false flat downhill to Belfort and the finish after 206 kilometers, the longest stage of this year's Tour. UAE-XRG likely have the strength to hold a break and go for a stage win but the question is whether they choose to exert such an effort on a day with maybe not so much to gain. Riders looking for a break will be making that calculation and hoping they can snap the elastic and seek success of their own.
Race Summary
As expected, we had riders who did not take to the start after the pile up in yesterday's finish straight. Of the list of riders who ended their Tour de France was Frits Biesterbos of Picnic-PostNL Raisin, Fernando Gaviria of Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, and Jenno Berckmoes of Lotto Intermarché along with a handful of others who started quite banged up. Once the flag waived, five riders got away quite quickly including Kasper Asgreen of EF-Education EasyPost, Georg Zimmermann of Lotto Intermarché, Louis Vervaeke of Soudal Quickstep, Alex Kirsch of Cofidis, and Michał Kwiatkowski of Netcompany-Ineos but there were more than a few teams who wanted to be in the break and were not. The leaders dangled off the front until 178 km to go when the attacking from behind caught up to them and the race was reset. The first 40 minutes of the race averaged over 53 km/hr, and at that speed, it was very difficult to form any separation.
With 170 km to go, a large group of nearly 40 riders split off from the peloton. In the GC, Tom Pidcock of Pinarello Q36.5 was best placed at nearly 12 minutes but the one to garner the most attention was Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech who sat third in the Green jersey sprint classification. Lidl-Trek pulled to close the gap for Mads Pedersen but their will was not great enough to match the pure strength of the front group and the gap grew. Another group of around 20 riders formed a counter attack which included Pedersen as well as Biniam Girmay of NSN Cycling who was also looking for Green jersey points. The gap was 1 minute to the front group when they split off which made the connection of the two groups far from a sure thing.
Through Montbozon with 117 km to go, the chasing group of 20 riders was still 45 seconds behind the leaders with the peloton out to 4 minutes 30 seconds. On a long, straight road under a canopy of plane trees, the chasers had the lead group in sight at 28 seconds. With 92 km to go, the catch was finally made and almost 60 riders were at the front of the race. The combination of tailwind and the pursuit between the two groups had pushed the average speed to an eye-watering 54 km/hr and the peloton had drifted to over 6 minutes 30 seconds.
15 km from the intermediate sprint, Bahrain Victorious put men on the front of the peloton to control the gap which had expanded to over 7 minutes. The presense of Pidcock meant that the GC place of Lenny Martinez was under threat but into Mélisey with 69 km to go, the gap hadn't moved at all. Alpecin-Premier Tech were the first to accelerate for the intermediate sprint with Pedersen and Girmay on the Philipsen's wheel. Girmay popped out of the slip stream first and the three were wide across the road with 100 meters to go. The pure speed of Philipsen brought him quickest to the line to take maximum points with Pedersen taking second by the width of the rim to Girmay in third.
Pinarello Q36.5 took ownership of the pace in the break from then and brought the leaders to the base of the Col des Croix at 53 km to go with a gap of 7 minutes 45 seconds. Pinarello Q36.5 continued to ride on the front up the wide highway climb until 1,300 meters from the top when Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost attacked from about fifth wheel. The move shed a few riders out of the back but Pinarello Q36.5 regained control and led over the top with 48 km to go and at least 40 riders still in the group.
There were no attacks from the lead group until they reached the bottom of the Ballon d'Alsace with 39 km to go. When Rick Pluimers of Tudor Pro Cycling attacked, the parachute opened at the back and many riders called it a day. Pluimers was caught by an acceleration from Kévin Vauquelin of Netcompany-Ineos but he didn't get anywhere. Jordan Jegat of TotalEnergies, Lars Craps of Lotto Intermarché, and Marc Hirschi of Tudor Pro Cycling also had a try but but Jayco AlUla had numbers and rode them all down with their hopes set on Michael Matthews winning from the group. Jayco AlUla rode on the front until 4 km from the top when Maxim Van Gils of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe attacked. Pidcock tracked down Van Gils 1 km later and the front group was down to Pidcock, Van Gils, Vauquelin, Jegat, Luke Plapp and Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla, Clément Braz Afonso of Groupama-FDJ United, and Brandon McNulty of UAE-XRG.
Plapp went on the attack for about 700 meters before Pidcock single handedly brought the Aussie back and the group of eight reached the last 1,500 meters of the climb. Fans had packed in so tightly near the top that the riders didn't have much more road to play with than the width of their handle bars. The group slowed in the last kilometer which allowed Harold Tejada of XDS-Astana to join as well as Tim Wellens of UAE-XRG. Just as Wellens got on, Pidcock put in a last ditch effort to break free. All but Wellens was able to hang on and nine riders went over the top together with 30 km to go. Wellens was at 15 seconds back, Nicolas Breuillard of TotalEnergies was another 10 seconds back with the Matthews group containing five riders at 35 seconds.
At the bottom with 17 km to go, Wellens had joined the front group which made the tactics much more complicated with two UAE-XRG riders in the group. A few moments later, Schmid went across the road and rolled a hard turn that only Tejada was wise to and the pair saw themselves with a gap. They hung around 10 seconds for a while but a slight discord in the chase meant that they were able to squeeze out to 18 seconds as they passed under 7 km to go. 3 km later, Vauquelin attacked the chase group with Jegat on his wheel over a small rise in the road. They couldn't snap the elastic and gap went out to 22 seconds with the win seeming to be out of their grasp.
With 2 km to go, Schmid took his final pull which was a long way out with just 20 seconds but Tejada didn't seem too worried and continued pulling at a decent pace. Tejada finally started to play the game under 1 km to go while behind, Wellens had broken free and was in pursuit of the two leaders. Schmid was maneuvered to the front with 400 meters to as they entered the finish straight and the Swiss held firm to the barriers on his right side. The camera panned back to find Wellens being absorbed into the chase group but they were slightly too far back to challenge for the win. Under 250 meters to go, Tejada launched and it took Schmid a moment to react. Tejada's jump was a good one and he was leading but Schmid got on top of the gear and powered passed the Colombian climber to take the win for Jayco AlUla. Tejada was a disappointed second with Pidcock winning the sprint for third just 2 seconds later.
The GC group didn't arrive in Belfort for another 7 minutes 30 seconds which was enough to vault Pidcock up into fourth overall at 4 minutes 15 seconds, just 9 seconds off the podium. All of the other riders in the GC top ten came in together with their eyes firmly set a difficult weekend ahead.