Takeaways From and Other Thoughts About the <\/b>Marvellous<\/b> 2026 Tour de France<\/b><\/p>\n
The Great Race<\/span><\/p>\n This edition of the Tour de France, the 113th since 1903, was the most dramatic and exciting I’ve ever seen \u2013 and this despite the fact that there was no suspense at all, not since stage 10, about who would win the yellow jersey (if there ever was). This was partly due to the brilliant design of the <\/span>race because <\/span>it was structured like a thriller, with the drama slowly building to an explosive climax.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That climax exploded in the final four stages of the race and had numerous heroes: Tadej Poga\u010dar (of course) and his UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG teammate Isaac del Toro; Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education\u2013EasyPost); Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGA), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin\u2013Premier Tech), Sepp Kuss (Visma\u2013Lease a Bike), Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and all the riders who, desperate for a victory with time running out, jumped into breakaways and animated those final stages.<\/span><\/p>\n And there could have been no more fitting conclusion to such an extraordinary race than Sunday’s final stage, which had been shortened because French security personnel were needed to fight fires around Bordeaux, so that the entire stage took place in Paris, with the astonishing finale played out in Montmartre and the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es (as written by Dan Brown and directed by Alfred Hitchcock).<\/span><\/p>\n Two of the greatest riders of all time, Poga\u010dar and van der Poel, went head-to-head as they passed the Basilique du Sacr\u00e9-C\u0153ur with 11 <\/span>km<\/span> left to ride in the 88.7 <\/span>km<\/span> race, pursued by a group of sprinters and their support riders, all of them eager for an iconic win. The group came within touching distance of the two 500 <\/span>metres<\/span> from the finish. Then, in the wink of an eye, van der Poel found another gear and rocketed towards the line, as Poga\u010dar \u2013 no doubt fatigued from his efforts over three weeks \u2013 faded. Van der Poel just managed to hold off the pursuers, but then collapsed from exhaustion \u2013 and so did I. What a race!<\/span><\/p>\n Oh, yes, I nearly forgot: This Tour, with its 54,450 <\/span>metres<\/span> of elevation gain and its heat wave, was the fastest Tour of all time, with Poga\u010dar establishing the mark of 43.227 km\/h. It also set the mark for the fastest stage of all time, 50.91 km\/h on stage 11.<\/span> Wow!<\/span><\/p>\n Tadej Poga\u010dar winning a record-tying fifth Tour de France was as unsurprising and inevitable as the sun rising, such is his superiority over his rivals. In fact, his winning margin of 6:26 over Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe) was a little disappointing because it could have been substantially higher; and he might also have won more than five stages if he hadn’t ridden as teammate Isaac del Toro’s domestique on stages 15 and 20.<\/span><\/p>\n On stage 15, he tried to nurse a tiring del Toro to the summit finish on the Plateau de Solaison climb, but the young Mexican had nothing left. When Evenepoel<\/span> (see below) <\/span>surged past him, Poga\u010dar stayed on his wheel all the way to the line without contesting the victory. On stage 20, he worked to prevent Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) from pushing del Toro off the podium. But despite a perfectly executed strategy by his team, the 19-year-old had nothing in the tank and faded with about 33 <\/span>km<\/span> left to ride. That gave Poga\u010dar ample distance and time to overhaul the eventual stage winner, Richard Carapaz. So why didn’t he?<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps it was because he and UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG were worried about the constant talk about how his dominance was killing the suspense in the sport and that they were depriving other teams and riders of joy. That makes sense from a team perspective because, like all professional sports, cycling is also a business, and the Tour de France is big business. Look at the team <\/span>website<\/span><\/a> to see all the brands sponsoring it. They include Emirates Airline; XRG, the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi state-owned oil company; the virtual indoor cycling software platform My Whoosh, and the Emirati artificial intelligence and cloud computing company G42 \u2013 to name just a few.<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps someone had worried that the brands were being damaged by the perception that Poga\u010dar’s dominance was hurting the sport and disrespecting other teams and riders. Carapaz and Kuss, who were ahead of Poga\u010dar on stage 20, are very popular riders, and to deprive them of a victory atop the Alpe d’Huez \u2013 as he <\/span>had<\/span> already done on the previous stage \u2013 might have been regarded as an arrogant bridge too far, especially as he was planning to win stage 21. It’s just a thought. But in truth, given Poga\u010dar’s superiority, he could easily have won eight stages.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\nUnbelievable but true: Poga\u010dar could have done better<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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