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Jonas Vingegaard stunned Tadej Pogacar by taking nan first yellowish jersey of nan 2026 Tour de France aft his Visma-Lease a Bike squad won nan opening shape of this year’s race, a 19.6km squad clip proceedings done Barcelona.
“It feels astonishing to person nan yellowish jersey again,” Vingegaard said. “It’s been 3 years and it’s 1 of nan astir beautiful jerseys successful cycling. It’s nan cleanable commencement for our race.”
The Danish rider, victor of this year’s Giro d’Italia and nan Tour champion successful 2022 and 2023, threw down nan gauntlet to longstanding rival Pogacar, beating nan Slovenian defending champion by a astonishing 12 seconds astatine nan decorativeness successful Montjuic.
The shape was besides a adjacent miss for Filippo Ganna of Netcompany-Ineos, who came wrong 8 seconds of taking nan first yellowish jersey for nan Dave Brailsford-managed squad since Egan Bernal won nan Tour successful 2019.
As a barometer of nan shape of nan Tour’s favourites, each were coming and correct, pinch nan French dream Paul Seixas and a leaned-down Remco Evenepoel, of nan Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team, some looking forces to contend with.
The chiefly level way suited nan powerhouse time-trialling characteristics of Ganna, Josh Tarling and Tobias Foss of nan rebranded Ineos team. Under nan watchful oculus of Netcompany’s CEO, André Rogaczewski, nan eight-man squad were fastest done each nan checkpoints and appeared group for nan champion time, until their nominated leader, Kevin Vauquelin, had a puncture connected nan attack to Montjuic, losing a infinitesimal by nan finish.
With nan Frenchman distanced and Bernal besides dropped, activity passed to nan erstwhile world clip proceedings champion Ganna, who powered up nan last 800m to group nan fastest clip by much than half a minute.
That lead remained intact until Vingegaard came into view, pummelling nan pedals successful nan power of nan precocious afternoon, to grounds his champion clip proceedings capacity since 2023, erstwhile he went connected to triumph nan Tour from Pogacar by almost 7 and half minutes.
While nan aged rivals now look destined to fastener horns successful nan days to come, it was a solid, if unspectacular commencement by Seixas, who group nan 2nd fastest time, until that excessively was blown distant by those that came aft him.
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Evenepoel, nan Olympic clip proceedings champion, who had precocious hopes of claiming nan Tour’s first yellowish jersey, was riding a typical prototype motorcycle pinch a immense 68-tooth gear, to alteration him to maximise his powerfulness connected nan Catalan city’s wide avenidas. But Florian Lipowitz, his co-leader astatine Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, who vanished 3rd successful past year’s Tour, struggled successful nan last 2 kilometres and fell down his Belgian teammate.
The changes to nan squad clip proceedings rules mean squads tin spend to suffer each rider but one, successful pursuit of nan fastest time, whereas successful nan past they would sometimes slow their gait to guarantee they vanished pinch a minimum of four. Individual times besides count towards nan wide classification. The revision is intended to disrupt nan stranglehold connected nan wide standings of apical teams, specified arsenic Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates XRG, that is usually nan aftermath of a squad clip trial. With Pogacar abruptly connected nan backmost foot, nan maneuver appears to person worked.
High temperatures, expected to climb supra 40C by Monday, and gusting winds are besides fuelling a further threat to nan race, pinch nan Tour organisation now monitoring spreading wildfires successful bluish Catalonia and astir nan Spanish separator pinch France. More than 2,000 firefighters are battling fires on France’s Mediterranean seashore and Perpignan airdrome has besides been closed. Monday’s 3rd shape heads northbound into France’s Pyrénées-Orientales département and a decorativeness successful Les Angles.
