Results Tour de France 2026 Stage 6 – Race over already? Tadej Pogacar destroys Jonas Vingegaard on first high-mountain day as Tourmalet gives UAE leader a 23rd Tour win

Tadej Pogacar has delivered a potentially race-defining blow on the first high-mountain stage of the 2026 Tour de France, riding clear of Jonas Vingegaard on the Col du Tourmalet before taking his 23rd career stage victory at the race in Gavarnie-Gedre.

Isaac del Toro made the decisive acceleration five kilometres from the Tourmalet summit, carrying Pogacar clear before the world champion pressed on alone. Vingegaard crested the climb around half a minute down, but the gap only grew from there, with Pogacar turning the opening Pyrenean test into a brutal statement of authority.

Stage 6 never became the wide-open mountain raid that several teams had hoped for. Victor Campenaerts attacked from kilometre zero for Team Visma | Lease a Bike, putting a Vingegaard teammate up the road straight away, but the pace and repeated counter-moves stopped the race from settling into a large breakaway.

Huub Artz and Mads Pedersen joined the early attack, with Pedersen taking maximum points at the intermediate sprint to extend his lead in the green jersey standings. Behind them, the peloton repeatedly stretched and split on the rolling roads, briefly forcing Remco Evenepoel to chase after an ill-timed stop.

Ben O’Connor later gave the stage its most serious early move, pushing clear with Xabier Azparren and then alone towards the Col d’Aspin. The Australian had the profile and freedom to gamble from far down overall, but UAE Team Emirates – XRG never allowed the gap to grow into anything that could threaten their plan.

Once Nils Politt and Tim Wellens began to press on the Col d’Aspin, O’Connor was brought back and the first layer of the race started to disappear. Sean Quinn and Mathias Vacek, second and third overall at the start of the day, both lost contact before the summit.

Juan Ayuso briefly looked under pressure before recovering, while Cian Uijtdebroeks was forced backwards after a shoe problem and never returned once UAE lifted the pace. The Belgian Movistar leader, who had already been struggling with illness since the start of his debut Tour, later abandoned, bringing his first appearance at the race to a premature end.

The heat added to the attrition, with Arvid de Kleijn and Bert Van Lerberghe also abandoning during the stage and the sprinters’ group forming long before the main climbs. Lenny Martinez beat Valentin Paret-Peintre by millimetres at the top of the Aspin to take maximum mountain points, but UAE reached the descent with numbers still around Pogacar and the front group already reduced before the Tourmalet.

The Tourmalet briefly opened with riders collecting bottles, but the pace soon returned. Wellens continued the work, Felix Grossschartner took over, and Brandon McNulty then reduced the group further before Adam Yates moved to the front.

Thymen Arensman and Matteo Jorgenson were among the early casualties on the climb, with Jorgenson’s departure leaving Vingegaard with far less support. Jai Hindley, Tom Pidcock, Lennert Van Eetvelt, Ilan Van Wilder, Richard Carapaz and Giulio Piganzoli also lost contact as UAE continued to remove riders.

Then Torstein Traeen cracked. The Norwegian had begun the day in yellow with almost eight minutes over Pogacar and Vingegaard, but he was distanced with around 10 kilometres of the Tourmalet remaining. By the summit, he was 7:38 behind Pogacar, leaving the Maillot Jaune all but certain to change shoulders.

His stage then took another heavy blow on the descent. Traeen crashed hard on a bend after touching the rear wheel of a teammate, with medical staff checking him before he was able to continue. The Norwegian eventually got back on his bike, but his time in yellow was already ending in painful fashion and he later rode more than 14 minutes behind the front of the race.

Vingegaard lasted longer in the favourites’ group, but UAE had stripped his support to Sepp Kuss before the decisive acceleration came. Pogacar still had McNulty, Yates and Del Toro in front of him deep into the climb.

The move came after Yates completed his turn. Del Toro accelerated with Pogacar on his wheel, and the pair immediately opened a gap over Vingegaard, Evenepoel, Paul Seixas and the rest of the reduced group.

Seixas tried to respond, Evenepoel had no answer, and Vingegaard chose not to panic, settling into his own rhythm behind the UAE pair. Del Toro’s job was done within a kilometre, leaving Pogacar alone as Vingegaard passed the fading Mexican and began to chase the world champion up the road.

Pogacar crested the Tourmalet alone, taking the Souvenir Jacques Goddet and 20 mountain points at the highest point of the stage. Vingegaard followed around half a minute later, with the Seixas, Florian Lipowitz and Del Toro trio next on the road and the Evenepoel group further back.

The descent only increased the damage. Pogacar stretched his advantage to 43 seconds, then 55 seconds as the race approached the end of the long drop from the Tourmalet. At one point, the world champion shouted at a TV motorbike that came too close on the descent, with the favourites already flirting with the limits at speeds above 100kph.

By the time the road began climbing again towards Gavarnie-Gedre, Vingegaard was already more than a minute behind his biggest rival. The final climb was long rather than savage, rising for 18.7 kilometres at an average of 3.7%, but Pogacar continued to pull away rather than simply defend what he had won on the Tourmalet.

Halfway up the climb, Pogacar had moved almost two minutes clear of Vingegaard. With five kilometres remaining, the gap touched the two-minute mark, leaving the stage and yellow jersey firmly in his hands.

Pogacar continued alone to Gavarnie-Gedre to claim his 23rd Tour de France stage victory, underlining the gap between himself and the rest on the first true mountain day of the race. What had started as a controlled UAE mountain test ended with their leader back in yellow and Vingegaard left to absorb a heavy defeat far earlier in the Tour than he would have wanted.

Behind the two main favourites, Seixas produced one of the strongest rides of the day. The 19-year-old Decathlon CMA CGM Team leader had been positioned by Nicolas Prodhomme before being left alone, then lost ground when Del Toro launched Pogacar.

He did not disappear. As Vingegaard chased alone and Del Toro faded from his effort, Seixas rode back to the group with Del Toro and Lipowitz before the Tourmalet summit.

Evenepoel then used the descent to come back into the picture. The Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe leader descended even faster than Pogacar, bringing the chase together behind the two men up the road. Del Toro, Kuss, Evenepoel, Lipowitz, Ayuso, Skjelmose, Seixas and Martinez formed an eight-rider group at around 1:45 behind Pogacar as the descent ended.

Once the road began climbing again towards Gavarnie-Gedre, Evenepoel stayed on the front and tried to keep the group moving. Ayuso eventually came through after some hesitation, and the chase began to turn more effectively as Vingegaard’s margin over them came down.

The first high-mountain test of the 2026 Tour produced more than a stage win. Pogacar took control, Vingegaard lost major time, Traeen slipped out of yellow after a brutal crash-hit afternoon, and the rest of the GC contenders were left chasing a race that may already have tilted decisively towards the UAE Team Emirates – XRG leader.