As hard to believe as it sounds, Jordan Jegat - a top-10 finisher from last year's Tour de France - has never won a professional race in his career. Despite having come close to a victory multiple times, the 26-year-old's wait lasted until today.
Quite an unlikely victory. Jegat was in better racing shape before - after all he was yet to race in 2026 before Friday. The Classic Grand Besancon Doubs (1.1) was Jegat's delayed start to this season, in which he aims for no less than a Tour de France stage victory.
"It's crazy, I knew I was capable of doing it but I had never won as a pro because every time I made tactical errors, especially in this race. I think this is my fifth participation. I finished 4th last year, 10th two years ago," Jegat recounts in a post-race interview.
"Since I got back on the bike after my injury, I've been thinking about this race and playing out all sorts of scenarios in my head! Today, it was the best possible scenario, so I'm super happy."
Regardless of his lengthy absence, Jegat was still counted among pre-race favourites alongside Decathlon CMA CGM Team youngsters Matthew Riccitello and Léo Bisiaux, the two supported by Nicolas Prodhomme. The strongest French team at the moment was confident about its winning chances, but missed the opportunity to use numbers advantage to put pressure on Jegat who holds a much better kick to the line than Decathlon's leaders.
Finally managed to contain his own nature
However the presence of multiple Decathlon jerseys, pushing a hard pace from the foot of final summit, made Jegat itch to attack as soon as possible. Yet, he learnt from his mistakes of the past and saved his matches as the front group continued to whittle down. "It wasn't easy. From the bottom of the climb, I felt great and wanted to attack. But I thought back to the mistakes of previous years and tried to stay calm for as long as possible," he explains.
"I had Lylian Lebreton (DS) in my earpiece telling me to calm down, despite my temperament. I really tried to stay with the others, then accelerated at the end to avoid being overtaken. I knew I had to launch my sprint in the corner, in the last 200 meters, and it worked."
Besides a prestigious victory for a team searching for a new title sponsor from 2027, Jegat passes a large personal milestone in his career. Today's victory was an accumulation of continuous work and excellent training ethic, all of which paid off in Besancon.
"I always believed I could do it, but you never know what level the others are at. In any case, I knew I felt very good and that they would have a hard time dropping me. I simply tried to follow their attacks, let them do their thing, and it worked well."
Jegat can immediately try for double at the Tour du Jura. The follow-up one-day race in Jura mountain range offers even more challenging parcours - but without endless mountain passes which would favor the lightweight runner-up from today - Matthew Riccitello - who seems to be Jegat's main challenger this Saturday.
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Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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- lol yeahmij08-11-2026
- I know, their headlines can be so misleading. Pidcock had a great season with 5 wins. and some solid 2nds. no reason to take away from that with a fake headline.mij08-11-2026
- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
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