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Get a complete overview of the 2026 Tour de France, including the key stages, the mountainous route starting in Barcelona, and the top contenders. We analyze the favorites for the yellow jersey, such as Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, and Remco Evenepoel.
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00:00This is Tadej Pogacar, the rider who is probably en route to becoming the greatest cyclist of all
00:07time. Can he win the 2026 Tour de France though? To do so he'll need to beat riders who have
00:13got
00:13the better of him in the past and are currently riding stronger than ever, as well as besting
00:18the new kids on the block, one of which has already been labelled as Pogacar's successor.
00:24Well, whether he's ready or not, the biggest cycling race in the world is here and here's
00:29everything that you need to know about it. The Tour de France 2026 begins on Saturday 4th
00:36July and this year marks the 130th edition of the flagship race. As usual it will last for
00:42three weeks with 21 stages, seven flat, four hilly, eight mountainous including five summit finishes
00:48to hammer home any advantage. Last year was a rare case of the Tour de France being raced
00:53entirely in France, but this year the race starts in Barcelona before crossing the border
00:59into the French Pyrenees on stage four. We'll take a look at the 21 stage route including some of the
01:05key stages and the return of an old favourite in just a minute, but first make sure you're subscribed
01:11and let's take a look at some of the favourites. The 2026 Tour is the third most mountainous route
01:17in the last 20 years, so it's safe to say that it's one for the climbers. Sorry Remco. We'll get
01:22onto the
01:23other jersey contenders later on, but first let's take a look at who's most likely to bring home the
01:28yellow jersey and the general classification win. Well, as the title suggests, reigning champion and
01:34current world champion Tade Pogaccia comes into the 2026 edition as the hot favourite, off the back of a
01:41dominant display at the Tour de Swiss and Spring Classics. His main rival for the yellow jersey will
01:47surely be Jonas Vingegaard at Visma Lisa bike, and there's plenty of climbs on the route where
01:52Vingegaard has come out on top of Pogaccia in the past. Vingegaard showed excellent form at the Giro d'Italia,
01:58but will be without the help of trusty domestiques such as Wout van Aert, Christoph Laporte and
02:03potentially Edoardo Affini as well after a nasty crash at the Italian national champs last weekend.
02:09Of course, if he does manage to sweep up the win, then there's more than just the jersey on the
02:14line.
02:14There's also a whole heap of prize money up for grabs. For winning the 2023 edition of the race,
02:20Vingegaard collected a total €535,000, a sum which is customarily shared among the
02:27team's riders and staff. Also gunning for the yellow jersey will be Remko Ebenopol.
02:33He finished third and claimed the best young riders jersey in his Tour de France debut in 2024,
02:38and he's publicly stated that it's his aim to compete with Vingegaard and Pogaccia.
02:44The Olympic champion will eye taking the yellow jersey on team time trial, and is another strong
02:49contender for a podium place, but after struggling last year, he's going to need to step it up another
02:54gear to prove he's on the same level as Pog and Vingo. He does have the benefit of a mighty
03:00strong
03:00team around him, with co-leader Lipovic and Jai Hindley bringing Grand Tour winning experience.
03:05Oh, and he's got a new bike, this specialised tarmac SL9.
03:10Arguably the most exciting debut will be for Paul Sexus. Sexus has the weight of expectation on his
03:17young shoulders, but he's one of the few riders that has been able to make Pogaccia mouth breathe
03:22this season. At 19 years of age, no one, well, we just don't know where his limit actually is.
03:28Potentially expecting a win this year is a stretch ambitious, but stranger things in cycling have
03:33happened, and Decathlon CMA-CGM are surely hoping for a podium. With Oscar on the out,
03:39it looks as though net company Ineos won't have the firepower necessary to battle for the GC,
03:44but other riders to look out for are Ben O'Connor from Jayco Alula, Juan Ayuso from Little Trek,
03:52Richard Carapaz at the EF Education First, and of course super domestiques such as Isaac Del Toro
03:58and Matteo Jorgensen. Of course, let us know any of your dark horses or predictions down in the
04:04comments below. Now next up, I've picked out five favourites for the green sprinters jersey.
04:10Tim Merlier, he's in incredible form at the moment and he'll be hard to beat in a pure sprint stage,
04:15but Jasper Philipsen will be hoping to do just that. He's no stranger to the green jersey and will once
04:21again have the assistance of Matteo van der Poel on lead-out duties. What a hell of a lead-out
04:26man.
04:27Binyam Gamay is also back to try and reclaim the green jersey, and Mads Pedersen and Olav Couges are
04:33also ones to watch. Is it Coy? It might be Coy. Coug. Coy. Coy. I don't know how you pronounce
04:39his name.
04:40It's one of those two, I reckon. Oh, and the ASO, the race's organisers, they've basically had to change
04:47the way the points work to stop a GC rider, a Gacha, winning the green jersey as well.
04:53There will now be multiple intermediate sprints per stage as well, new for 2026.
04:58We've already touched on the white jersey contenders which has worked out in the same way as the yellow
05:03jersey with the cumulative time of all the 21 stages counting minus any bonus seconds for podium finishes
05:10on summit finishes. Only riders under the age of 26 are eligible for the jersey and it looks set to
05:16be a
05:17battle between Lipovic, Sexus, Isaac Del Toro, Juan Ayuso and let's throw Lenny Martinez into the mix as well.
05:27It's safe to say that there's plenty of young talent looking to leave their mark on this race.
05:32The polka dot jersey is awarded based on points accrued atop each categorised client and is probably
05:39the hardest jersey to predict. That said, with five summit finishes, the safe money would probably be
05:44on one of the GC favourites. Fingers crossed we do get a good battle though, maybe someone such as
05:50Carapaz? You might target this rather than the overall. Right, that's the favourites, but what
05:55are they up against? Well, before we get into our route analysis, here's how to watch the thing.
06:00For UK viewers, the 2026 Tour de France won't be shown live on ITV like in previous years,
06:08but there will be a daily highlight show on Channel 5. If you want to watch it live, then TNT
06:13Sports
06:13and HBO Max are where to go and offer subscriptions from £25.99 a month. In the US, you can
06:20watch the
06:20tour on NBC and Peacock, with plans starting from $10.99. Canadian fans can stream the race via Flow
06:27Bikes, which holds the exclusive rights. And if you're in Australia or many European countries,
06:32then there's free live coverage, you lucky buggers. However, if you can't access your home Tour de France
06:39stream wherever you are, don't miss the race just because of your location. With NordVPN, you can
06:44change your virtual location in just one click and unlock your favourite Tour de France stream from
06:49almost anywhere in the world. Whether that's SBS, RyePlay or France TV, NordVPN can unlock your stream.
06:57Right now, you can get up to 75% off plus three extra months free with the link that we
07:03popped
07:03in our description. You don't want to miss that. Back to the route. As usual, the Tour de France takes
07:09place over 23 days, with 21 of them being race days. The riders get a whole two rest days in
07:14that,
07:15which fall on the second and third Monday of the race. Road stages in the Tour can range from anything
07:20between 100km and something like 250km. Sometimes more than that, actually.
07:27This year, the shortest road stage is stage 19 at 127.9km, that's from Gap to Alpe d'Huez,
07:33and the longest is on stage 13, 205.8km. The race looks a little bit different to past few years,
07:41with a start in northern Spain, plenty of mountains early on in the form of the Pyrenees,
07:45and then the usual trip to the Alps before finishing in Paris. Alpe d'Huez makes two
07:50appearances in this year's edition, with both stage 19 and stage 20 finishing atop the famous mountain,
07:57with the latter also earning the Crown of Queen stage. Now, if you've ridden the Marmot Sportif,
08:03then the route might look rather familiar, with the Quadrefer, the Telegraph and the Glibier all
08:08make an appearance. It does then go up the Serène and then just does the last few hairpins of Alpe
08:13d'Huez.
08:13In fact, I took on this stage a few weeks ago, so to see just how hard a Tour de
08:18France stage is…
08:19How the f*** do they race up this? Vincenzo Nibali, whole thing out of the saddle.
08:26Attaque de taille, we gotcha! Gotta ride together for a bit, or you're gonna bugger up again.
08:31Make sure you're subscribed to the channel, as that video is coming soon.
08:35In 2026, the Tour has two time trials for the riders to tackle. The first is a team time trial
08:40on stage
08:41one for the first time since 1971. That's 19 kilometres in length. I used to love watching
08:47the team time trial, and this year it could be even more exciting as every rider gets their own
08:52individual time. That means that the super strong riders might use their team as lead out riders,
08:59rather than reaching the finish as a group. The second time trial will happen on stage 16,
09:04to keep the GC riders on their toes, at 26 kilometres in length, with the first 10 kilometres
09:09of that being a steady climb. Unlike some tours where it can be a bit of a slow start, this
09:15year's
09:15edition should definitely start with a bang. A GC favourite could well be in yellow from stage one,
09:21then there's a hilly stage on day two, and then it's a mountainous stage on day three.
09:26So the GC riders are basically going to have to be on form from start to finish because, well,
09:33you've then got all the hardest stages right at the end of the three years. In fact, the Queen stage
09:38only narrowly misses out on the record of being the hilliest stage ever, so it's about 50 metres
09:44short of that. If I had to pick one stage to watch, it probably would be the Alps at the
09:48end,
09:49but one that might have flown under your radar is stage 15. It's got an absolutely brutal climb of
09:55Plateau de Solisson, which features in the Tour de France for the first time ever.
10:00Looking at their 2026 form, it would be easy to think that Pogaccia has all the cards. He certainly
10:05has a phenomenal team around him, and race wins galore. The only question for me is, can he survive
10:11three weeks of absolutely relentless elevation gain? Now, it's no secret that Pogaccia was desperate to
10:18win Paris-Roubaix, and whilst he didn't manage it, his physique did change as he wiped the floor with
10:24just about every other Classics this spring. Now, Wingergaard, meanwhile, he's tailored his whole
10:29year around the Tour. He's won it twice before, we know he's in Grand Tour winning shape, and Visma
10:35Lisa Bike said that his power to weight is better than ever before. With 23 teams, 184 riders and 3
10:43,321
10:44kilometres, the next three weeks are sure to write some stories. Let us know any of your predictions down
10:50below, and look out for lots more Tour de France content on the Cycling Weekly channel and Instagram.
10:55Enjoy it, and we'll see you in the thick of it.
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