"This isn't really a team time trial" - Visma boss Richard Plugge critical of 2026 Tour de France start

After the reveal of the Tour de France route Team Visma | Lease a Bike DS Grischa Niermann expressed satisfaction at the backloaded route with most decisive stages beginning only on the 14th day of racing. Richard Plugge, the team CEO, has also put an eye on the final Alpe d'Huez stage but particularly, he was disappointed with the race's start with a team time trial that he believes goes against what the discipline is about.

"The focus is at the end. It's relatively lighter at the beginning of the Tour: they clearly want to keep the fight going until the end," Plugge shared with In de Leiderstrui. Stage 6 into Gavarnie is the only high mountain stage in the first 13 days of the race, and although there are a few hilly stages and the team time trial, the gaps should be minimal except for that day. Tadej Pogacar has over the past two editions sealed the GC in quite dominant fashion and the route does not really allow that this upcoming years until the riders go quite deep into the route.

Plugge commented on the opening team time trial in which times should be taken individually at the finish line, and this will be a hilly finale with two small hilltops at the Alto de Montjuic and the final uphill ramp to the Olympic Stadium - where stage 2 will also finish.

"I'm not in favor of that. You're taking the 'team' aspect out of it. A team time trial is a team time trial, and what makes it so great is that the number counts the time of the fourth or fifth rider, so you have to carry that to the finish," he argues. "That's what I like about it, but it is what it is, and we have to adapt to that."

"This isn't really a team time trial. This is more of a long lead-out for the leader. We have to see how we're going to handle that. Normally, a team time trial suits us," Plugge wonders. "What's the idea? No idea... maybe do something different again? But then don't call it a team time trial, but a lead-out. A team lead-out trial, or something like that. TLT," he joked.

However not all is bad with a race that starts off with such a combination of days that will create differences in the peloton - unlike this year's race: "With that team time trial at the start, you immediately put something together, and that creates a kind of calm in the peloton."

The final Alpe d'Huez stage, one of the hardest of the century in terms of climbing meters, is the mountain day that has certainly grabbed Plugge's attention the most, and this will apply to most who aim to be at the start in Barcelona next July. "Alpe d'Huez is always beautiful, and via the Col de Sarenne is very nice. And even tougher, I think. I like that. It's going to be a brutal stage anyway, that's cool. Especially with the Sarenne."