The Tour In 10: Stage 1, Tour de France 2026

Recap of Stage 1 of the 2026 Tour de France plus a preview of Stage 2, all in under 10 minutes. 

Transcript

Godsmedicinecycling 0:07

Hello everybody, and welcome back to God's Medicine, i'm your host, Lauren. I'm here with my co-host, Hannah, and we are ready to kick off the Tour in 10 with stage one of the Tour de France, which started today. Reminder, we are a spoiler-first podcast, so it's all gonna be spoilers from here on in

hannah 0:23

The first stage of the Tour de France 2026 was a team time trial in Barcelona, and our results are, as far as the team placements go, Visma finishes first, Ineos finishes second eight seconds back, and UAE Team Emirates 12 seconds behind. The GC leaders after stage one are Jonas Vingegaard in yellow, Pipo Gana eight seconds back, Tadej Pogačar on 12, Juan Ayuso on 16, Remco Evenepoel on 19, Isaac del Toro on 26 seconds, Davide Piganzoli on 28 seconds, Florian Lipowitz on 35, Tobias Foss on 38, and Paul Seixas rounds out the top 10 on 39 seconds. Tadej Pogačar goes into the King of the Mountains jersey, which is awarded for the fastest climbing section of the TTT. Egan Bernal, green jersey, this was awarded to the fastest over the first checkpoint in the TTT. And Juan Ayuso goes into the youth jersey as the highest placed young rider.

Godsmedicinecycling 1:23

The big overarching narrative we have for the day is that this TT really did act to force the hands of some teams where we maybe weren't sure exactly who was going to be favored on which team. are, places where that's just not a question now. In terms of Visma, obviously they won this stage. They looked very dialed in. They had clearly an order that they were leading Vingegaard out with, and he looked in great shape as he came over the line. UAE Del Toro and Pog together at the end, and then, Pog cycled away from Del Toro in the last kilometer to finish 11 seconds back on Jonas. Their team as a whole did have slower splits in the lead-up and during the time trial than, both Visma, Ineos, and I think a couple other teams, they were not at the top. But it was enough to put Pog in King of the Mountains jersey, which is awarded for the fastest time on the climb, so he still looks to be in shape, and there's nothing to worry about there

hannah 2:22

As far as some of the other teams go, we had an absolutely monster ride from, you know, time trial champion Pippo Ganna. Ineos really salvaged the day with that ride after Kevin Vauquelin had a really unfortunate back wheel puncture pretty early on. So this confirms to us that Ineos is here to get a result, any result, and to be aggressive basically no matter what. We also saw Little Trek in absolutely ripping form. They also had an unfortunate early puncture, Mathias Skjelmose, I think again a rear wheel. And they did not wait. There was no hesitation. They moved along. Ayuso is the very clear leader here, and he had a really strong ride. The other thing that we saw was a little bit of separation between Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz over on Bora-Hansgrohe. This is probably because Remco Evenepoel is the best to maybe ever do it in the time trial. It didn't seem like they were particularly favoring him in the lineup. He actually was pulling quite a lot while the team was still together. So I don't think this is like huge alarm bells ringing for Lipowitz, but there is a bit of a gap in between those two.

Godsmedicinecycling 3:24

A few other things we wanted to highlight in terms of individual riders is that Tom Pidcock definitely put his cards into the GC pot. He tried really hard. As we suspected, his team was all together, and they were clearly riding for him. He just doesn't have that specialty in the time trial to get the results that some of the other GC riders did. And Decathlon with Paul Seixas, they look to come out a little slow. They were pretty measured. They weren't doing anything crazy or trying anything extreme. He makes it into the top 10, so I think that's a great ease into the Tour for him and a smart move by the team

hannah 4:00

Other notables for the day, Groupama and Romain Grégoire had a great ride, great time. Grégoire was in the hot seat for a little bit until Alpecin and Mathieu van der Poel took it off of his hands. They h- they looked really strong. They were leading at several splits for a while on the day, and it's really clear that van der Poel is, is serious about going for stage wins in this tour. Michael Matthews led the Jayco team, and he looked great. They were flying. He had a great ride. He looks to be in, back in full health, and we're thrilled to see it. And shout out to Cofidis for a surprise killer helmet

Godsmedicinecycling 4:36

Yeah. Very bold, stands out, love it. Love the uniforms, love the helmets. Thank you so much, Covfefe Looking on to stage two, we have a 168.5 kilometer stage from Tarragona to Barcelona. It's starts flat and then about halfway through we progress into rolling hills. There is an intermediate sprint with points on offer, followed by a Category 2 climb mid-stage. That's Coll de Begue, which is 6.1 kilometers at an average of 6.5% gradient. And then there are three Category 3s afterwards before closing the stage at Barcelona's Olympic Stadium

hannah 5:14

So what should we be watching for tomorrow? I think we're pretty unlikely to have GC action. I don't think any of these climbs are hard enough for there to be separation between those guys. The start of the stage is very flat, and the intermediate sprint is right before the Cat 3 climb. So that might punt break formation until after the intermediate sprint. Sort of up in the air, my guess is that the move of the day certainly won't happen until after the intermediate sprint. Somebody punchy could use the intermediate sprint to try and launch into an attack for the stage, which we've seen happen before

Godsmedicinecycling 5:48

On to stage predictions. Now it's pretty early in the tour, so we're not exactly sure still what shape some of these, riders are in and what teams are going to be hoping for. But if we had to, make a guess, and I guess we do, I first want to talk about Julian Alaphilippe. He does really well on these sort of hilly, punchy climbs. He's great at descending. He could be a sprightly, wily rider. We know and we've seen him work very well in a break before or with a smaller group going ahead, so he could be someone to watch tomorrow

hannah 6:21

Next up, he DNF'd the Dauphine, but he top 10'd the Ronda this year. There's a world in which I think the back half of this stage really could suit Matej Mohoric. I don't know what kind of shape he's in after DNF'ing the Dauphine, but if he is in form, this kind of has his name all over it again with the descents and with the, the hilly parkour

Godsmedicinecycling 6:42

I could see Mads Pedersen taking a stab at it, especially if he's already at the front of the peloton for that intermediate sprint. I could see him bringing a teammate as well

hannah 6:51

Speaking of teammates, um, how about the entire Alpecin team? Uh, uh, kind of being glib here, but not really. Um, Philipsen for sure is gonna contest the intermediate sprint. We know that. I think the back half of this suits Mathieu van der Poel really, really well. I think he could absolutely put in an attack on that Cat 2 climb. I think a lot of the rest of that team could go with him. Why not?

Godsmedicinecycling 7:14

Speaking of Alpecin, they're all on Q36.5 now. Quinten Hermans is there. Xandro Meurisse could make a move. I mean, Pidcock maybe tries to get away and make up some GC time tomorrow. Fred Wright could be out there riding. I think Q36, they very well could have some energy coming into this stage

hannah 7:35

Somebody else potentially in the mix for tomorrow I think could be Lenny Van Eetvelt. He was not bad today. He, you know, was Lotto's best finisher, not that Lotto finished particularly well. But I think the climb suits him. I don't know how much... If he doesn't get separation on that first climb, I don't know how much he could do in the three smaller climbs towards the finish, so his move would have to come earlier, I think

Godsmedicinecycling 7:57

And then someone we saw do really, really well in the team time trial is Tobias Foss, and I think we've seen INEOS is gonna be aggressive. I don't see why he shouldn't try and stick with a move and grind it out, and it seems like he could be somebody who could make a difference. And again, if INEOS wants to send more than one rider, hey, bring a front

hannah 8:17

Bring Pipogana after today's performance

Godsmedicinecycling 8:19

Yeah, bring Pippa again. They were the ones, you know, just redux

hannah 8:22

Yeah, just roll it back. Just roll it back.

Godsmedicinecycling 8:25

If it ain't broke, don't fix

hannah 8:27

Speaking of if it ain't broke, don't fix it, Luke Plapp also had a really good day today. Um, Michael Matthews rode it in for Jayco, but Plapp looked good, and he said in the press this week that he is not targeting GC. He really wants to go for stages, so this could be a good chance for him

Godsmedicinecycling 8:43

One final thing that might make stage predictions a little juicy is something we saw last year in the Tour de France, which is on these hillier stages, especially if there is a break that's out front, there might be another break formation behind in the hills, guys trying to get away form a second group. So it could be a day where we're mixing it up with one, two, or even a few more mini breaks that are trying to catch each other on this hilly terrain

hannah 9:08

All right. That is what we've got for stage two. Thank you for tuning in to God's Medicine for The Tour in 10. We will be back tomorrow with our recap of stage two and our preview of stage three, and I'm gonna give you one final plug. If you made your Velogames team before the tour started this morning, or this afternoon, depending on where in the world you are, uh, join our league. Join the God's Medicine fantasy league. Our Velogames code is 775623137