August 22, 2026
The final Grand Tour of the 2026 season kicks off on day one with a 9.4 km individual time trial entirely within the principality of Monaco. Although the course is quite flat, there are an innumerable amount of turns to contend with including at least two 180 degree turns. There is almost no chance for the pure ITT specialists to get into a rhythm to exploit their raw power so we could see a more punchy rider or even a sprint lead out rider take the first Red Leader's jersey of La Vuelta a España.
Highlight Riders
GC - Primož Roglič, Tadej Pogačar, Enric Mas, Cian Uijtdebroeks, Jørgen Nordhagen, Felix Gall, Oscar Onley, Santiago Buitrgo, Mattias Skjelmose, Andreas Leknessund, Tobias Johannessen, Richard Carapaz, Marco Brenner, Harold Tejada, Lorenzo Fortunato, Jarno Widar, Juan Guillermo Martinez
Sprinters - Jordi Meeus, Orluis Aular, Matthew Brennan, Ben Turner, Mads Pedersen, Kaden Groves, Alberto Dainese, Bryan Coquard, Alessandro Romele, Vito Braet, Steffen De Schuyteneer
Puncheurs/Baroudeurs - Iván Romeo, Wout van Aert, Bruno Armirail, Axel Laurance, Magnus Cort, Georg Steinhauser, Stefan Küng
Race Summary
Prince Albert II was on hand at the start for the ceremonial ribbon cutting to commemorate the start of La Vuelta as well as to acknowledge Monaco as the first place to host the start of all three Grand Tours after the 1966 Giro d'Italia and 2009 Tour de France. Diego Uriarte of Equipo Kern Pharma was the first rider down the ramp on the steps of the Casino de Monte-Carlo. The Spaniard set off passed Port Hercules and the luxury mega-yachts docked in the crystal blue waters to officially get the race under way.
The first major benchmark was set by Jordan Labrosse of Decathlon CMA CGM who put 17 seconds into the next best rider while all of the other times were separated by only a few seconds here and there. Labrosse's teammate, Sander De Pestel, hit the line 5 seconds quicker but the Belgian wasn't even off his bike before Matthew Brennan of Visma-Lease a Bike crossed the line a further 2 seconds faster to take over the hot seat.
The best times continued fall quite quickly after that. Brennan had about 20 minutes of air time in the hot seat before Arthur Kluckers of Tudor Pro Cycling powered to the line and covered the distance 5 seconds quicker than the Brit. Decathlon CMA CGM stacked another rider at the top when Oscar Chamberlain put 2 seconds into Kluckers then Léo Bisiaux knocked off Chamberlain by a single second to take the provisional top spot.
Times continued to fall with Callum Thornley of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, Josh Tarling of Netcompany-Ineos, and Ethan Hayter of Soudal Quickstep all owning the hot seat at one point. After Hayter completed his ride, there were only a handful of riders left but the main problem was that one of those riders was potentially the greatest cyclist of all-time in the form of Tadej Pogačar of UAE-XRG. The Slovenian had 7 seconds left to cross the line at 150 meters to go and managed to reach the finish 0.09 seconds quicker than Hayter to take the stage win and the first Red Jersey of this Vuelta with an average speed of 51.496 KM/HR. Hayter finished the day in second with his compatriot Josh Tarling in third.
Many of the pre-race GC favorites have work to do after less than 10 km of racing as most finished over 30 seconds down on Pogačar, a difficult margin to take back even over three weeks.