Results Tour de Suisse 2026 stage 1 | Tadej Pogacar destroys Roglic, Van der Poel and co with outrageous 70km solo to all but seal GC on day one

Tadej Pogacar put the Tour de Suisse in his grip on stage 1, launching from around 70km out and turning his race debut into a day-one demolition around Sondrio.

The world champion accelerated long before the expected finale and quickly bridged across to Frederik Dversnes, who had been alone at the head of the race. From there, the stage stopped being a punchy opener and became a long pursuit that the rest of the field never looked close to controlling.

Richard Carapaz was the only rider to break clear in meaningful response, but even his move became a fight for second rather than a route back to Pogacar.

Behind him, the main group containing Primoz Roglic drifted towards five minutes down as the chase lost structure on a day that had already escaped them before the final climbs.

The opening stage had always looked dangerous. At 144km, with steep climbs around Sondrio and a sharp final circuit, it offered the kind of terrain where Pogacar could test the race immediately. Instead, he went far earlier than expected.

Dversnes and Cedric Beullens had formed the early break, before the Norwegian went clear alone on the Buglio in Monte. Dversnes took the first mountain points ahead of Tim Wellens and Brandon McNulty, while the climb was already forcing splits behind. Antonio Tiberi and Alfonso Eulalio were both distanced on the 3km ascent, which averaged around 10 percent and included ramps up to 20 percent.

Pogacar made his move after Dversnes had taken the intermediate sprint. Within minutes, he had reached the Uno-X Mobility rider and then continued alone, using the Triangia climb to stretch the race apart rather than waiting for the short ramps closer to the finish.

Roglic, Matthew Riccitello, Mathias Vacek, Andrea Bagioli, Paul Double, McNulty, Carapaz and Dversnes were among the riders initially behind, but the chase never became a proper pursuit. The group had numbers, but not the cohesion to stop Pogacar’s lead growing.

Carapaz was the first rider to accept that waiting in the group was only making the damage worse. The Ecuadorian attacked from the chase with around 37km remaining, opening a gap of his own as the rest of the group continued to lose ground.

Bagioli later went clear behind him and closed towards Carapaz on the run-in, briefly adding a second-place fight to a stage that had otherwise been settled by Pogacar’s long-range move. The Italian had already opened a large margin over the group behind, while Carapaz almost misjudged a corner as the gap between them tightened.

Further back, the shape of the day was already fixed. Roglic remained in a group bleeding time, Tiberi and Eulalio had been under pressure since the Buglio in Monte, and Mathieu van der Poel, one of the obvious punchy-stage threats before the start, was out of the stage-winning picture long before the final climb.

The heat made Pogacar’s ride look even more severe. He was visibly drenched in sweat and used water to cool himself while continuing to hold the race at a distance.

The final climbs near Sondrio were supposed to decide the first leader’s jersey. Pogacar reached them with the stage already bent around his attack. On the first day of a five-stage race that still includes an individual time trial and a mountain finale, his first Tour de Suisse appearance already left everyone else chasing far more than a stage result.