July 22, 2026
The profile of today's course and the context of the race would suggest that it could be a break away day. This isn’t the last opportunity for the break, but it is the last opportunity for the heavier barradeurs to try their hand before the mountainous last few days. Leaving Chambéry, home base of Decathlon CMA CGM, the riders will head North along the Lac de Bourget for a loop before turning back South towards the finish in Voiron. The first part of the route is the hardest all day as the road goes steadily up for almost 50 km through two category four and one category three climb. A long descent leads the bunch back into Chambéry for 70 rolling kilometers to the intermediate sprint in Colombe. The last 25 km are reasonably straightforward on wide roads with just one 2.5 km, 4% bump along the way. If this stage was in the first week, almost everyone would say bunch sprint but teams are depleted and it will take collective strength among the sprint teams to control all day which is far from a certainty.
Race Summary
Straight from the gun, the power house duo of Jonas Abrahamsen of Uno-X Mobility attacked with Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto Intermarché and they were quick to build 20 seconds as they team time trialed their way along the lake shore. The pair were caught by an advancing group with 160 km to go on the approach to the base of the Côte de Bassa. The attacking continued with EF-Education EasyPost as the primary aggressors along with Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek who was hoping to get in a move without his Green jersey rivals. The race was still together over the top of the Côte de Rossillon with 139 km to go but a strong group of 25 riders split off before the Col des Pres and they started the final step in the profile with a 30 second gap on the peloton.
Pedersen missed the move and felt it necessary to be in that front group. The Col des Pres was ridden very hard and the front group was joined by another 30 riders to make a massive group at the top which included the Maillot Jaune, Tadej Pogačar of UAE-XRG and Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM. On the descent through the chalets and million dollar views across the Leysse Valley, riders were spread all over the road and it was impossible to tell who was where.
Coming back to Chambéry with 104 km to go, White jersey Isaac del Toro of UAE-XRG, Green jersey of Pedersen, and Tom Pidcock of Pinarello 36.5 were all spotted in the group behind Pogačar at 50 seconds. The rest of the favorites in the GC group decided that it was not worth pulling for the next 100 km to keep that advantage so they allowed a group to split off to form the break of the day and were caught by the del Toro group a few kilometers later.
The break, which took two hours to form, consisted of 16 strong riders including Mathieu van der Poel and Quinn Simmons which meant Alpecin-Premier Tech and Lidl-Trek would not be pulling in the peloton for Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen. Decathlon CMA CGM were the ones to take up the pace making and rode hard, pegging the lead group at 40 seconds. No other team came up to help the French squad so they decided to stop which left a lull in the speed. With 83 km to go, attacking resumed and Ben Healy of EF-Education EasyPost, Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike, and Mathis Le Berre of TotalEnergies squirreled off the front before the peloton shut down once more.
10 km down the road, Uno-X Mobility had started riding in the peloton with Decathlon CMA CGM pulling again as well. The 16 leaders were 35 seconds ahead of the Healy chase group and 1 minute 5 seconds ahead of the peloton with a dropped group that included Biniam Girmay of NSN Cycling at 3 minutes 20 seconds. The Healy group joined the front of the race to make 19 riders with 64.5 km to go but the peloton were coming and closing fast at just 38 seconds. The gap got down to just over 20 seconds and Pedersen made a last ditch effort to escape the peloton and jump across to the break. More riders were inspired to cross and at least 25 riders were trying make their way up to the front including Michael Matthews of Jayco AlUla and Decathlon CMA CGM's sprinter, Olav Kooij. As soon as Pedersen joined the front, Simmons put in a big effort keep the group away but more riders were coming across all the time. Alpecin-Premier Tech was aware of the danger and they had Philipsen in another chase group at 40 seconds.
Word had caught the front group that Philipsen was bridging and they started to split apart. Pedersen dragged Healy away along with Edward Planckaert of Alpecin-Premier Tech, Felix Engelhardt of Jayco AlUla, Jasper Stuyven of Soudal Quickstep, and Michał Kwiatkowski of Netcompany-Ineos. With 47 km to go, roughly 20 km from the intermediate sprint, the Pedersen lead group had built 50 seconds on the van der Poel/Kooij chase group of 30 riders and 90 seconds to the Philipsen group. 7 km later, the Philipsen group joined the van der Poel/Kooij group to make a very large chase group. Alpecin-Premier Tech, TotalEnergies, XDS-Astana, and Decathlon CMA CGM were the teams working to close down the 90 second gap as they rode passed the wonderfully blue, glacially formed Lac de Paladru.
1 km from the intermediate sprint in Colombe, Planckaert moved onto Pedersen's wheel to contest for the sprint but when the Dane jumped, Planckaert had no response and Pedersen grabbed maximum points. 1 minute later, Lidl-Trek tried to sweep up more points but Philipsen was wise to the plan and outsprinted everyone to take 9 points which meant Pedersen netted 16 crucial points. The difference between the two after the intermediate sprint was 47 points. No more points are realistically available for them in the next three days so, even with the points at the finish, the battle will likely not be decided until the final day in Paris.
Moments after the sprint, Stuyven attacked with no response from the others. He quickly built a gap and with 16 km to go, he had 45 seconds on the chase but the 40 rider Kooij/Philipsen group was closing at 55 seconds. With 8 km to go, Stuyven had 30 seconds on a motivated chase with Groupama-FDJ United, Jayco AlUla, and Alpecin-Premier Tech all committing men. A 4% drag under 5 km to go was the undoing for Stuyven who was caught 3.8 km from the finish. A counter attack went straight away by Per Strand Hagenes of Visma-Lease a Bike but he was neutralized over the top with 2.5 km to go and the group set up for a reduced sprint with only about 35 riders. Lotto Intermarché led through 1,500 meters for Huub Artz but Josh Tarling of Netcompany-Ineos speared through the group in an attempt to go solo. The Brit was pulled back with 700 meters to go but the group was severely stretched and everyone was fighting to hold the wheel in front of them. Out of the final corner at 300 meters, van der Poel accelerated with Philipsen on the wheel and Lewis Askey of NSN Cycling, Pedersen, and then Kooij behind. Philipsen seemed to be the only one with any breath left and when van der Poel peeled away, Philipsen open a big gap and was hardly challenged as he sailed across the line for his first win in this Tour. Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla did an amazing sprint to take second ahead of Kooij and Askey in third and fourth respectively.
Pedersen finished in eighth place and with Philipsen's win, the Belgian inched closer to just 7 points behind for the Green jersey, making this one of the closest competitions at this stage in recent memory. The GC top 10 remained unchanged but that likely won't be the case tomorrow with a summit finish to Orcières Merlette.