Results Tour de France 2026 stage 18 - Richard Carapaz wins in Orcières-Merlette as breakaway take glory in the Alps

The Tour de France has returned to the Alps and for the first time in this race, a mountain stage has been captured by the breakaway. After weeks of trying, Richard Carapaz has finally gotten a win, crossing the line in first place on stage 18 at the Orcières-Merlette summit finish.

The stage had a flat start but right from the first kilometers there were moves to form a breakaway, trying to anticipate the first climb of the day. In the 11-kilometer long ascent, there was resistance from Tadej Pogacar whose strong positioning who did not allow for strong groups to go up the road throughout the whole ascent whilst many attacked off the front.

It took almost 70 kilometers of racing for a breakaway to go up the road, on a stage that was widely believed to be won by the front group. The battles were non-stop, and amongst the chaos Mads Pedersen took advantage of great legs to score the maximum points in the intermediate sprint, once again creating a sizeable gap to Jasper Philipsen.

Shortly after the sprint the first breakaway group - a second larger one never made it to the head of the race - split, with Jorgenson, Engelhardt, Schmid, Johannessen and Pierna going up the road. Carapaz and Valentin Paret-Peintre bridged across the gap whilst Engelhardt was dropped; forming the new head of the race and the group that would fight for the stage win.

So as to avoid Carapaz' advantage from escalating and truly taking over the Top10; Pinarello - Q36.5, Tudor and TotalEnergies allied behind to close a few minutes of the breakaway's gap - whilst his ascent to Top10 looked inevitable nevertheless due to the late reaction.

Valentin Paret-Peintre, Richard Carapaz, Matteo Jorgenson, Tobias Johannessen, Mauro Schmid and Raúl García Pierna entered the final climb with several minutes over the closest group, and 5 minutes over the peloton. But only with 4 kilometers to go did Richard Carapaz launch the first serious move, followed by Paret-Peintre.

After the pace slowed down, shortly after Carapaz made another move, just as explosive and this time creating a gap over the rest. The EF Education-EasyPost rider was the strongest out of the front group and the way the gap exploded following his attack made that evident.

Paret-Peintre cracked whilst Matteo Jorgenson and Mauro Schmid began the chase behind, but without hopes of reaching the front. Carapaz took the stage win for EF Education-EasyPost, the first of the American team in this year's Tour. Schmid sprinted to second on the day ahead of Jorgenson.

The GC group arrived just over 4:30 minutes behind, without attacks or differences at the line.