The Tour In 10: Stage 2, Tour de France 2026

The God's Medicine team covers Stage 2 results for the 2026 Tour de France and previews Stage 3. 

Transcript

Godsmedicinecycling 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome back to God's Medicine Cycling Podcast. I'm your host Lauren, here with my co-host Hannah, and we are ready to give you today's Tour in 10. A reminder, this is a spoiler-first podcast, so everything from here on out will be spoilers

hannah 0:15

Stage two from Tarragona to Barcelona was a hilly 168.5 kilometer stage that featured a Category 2 climb sort of midway through before finishing with a city circuit and three repeats of the Cote Chateau de Montjuic before finishing in the Olympic Stadium. Our stage results are Isaac Del Toro in first, Tadej Pogacar in second. They crossed the line celebrating together. It was great. Remco Evenepoel in third, Jonas Vingegaard fourth, Matias Skjelmose on a really good day finished fifth, Tobias Halland Johannessen sixth, Romain Grégoire seventh. We love to see it. Lenny Martinez eighth, Paul Seixas ninth, Tom Pidcock 10th, Lenny van Eetvelt 11th, Juan Ayuso 12th, and Ilan Van Wilder 13. I've given you the top 13 because everybody from Skjelmose to Van Wilder finished on the same time, so it just seemed fair. Our overall standings in the GC, are more or less the same as yesterday. It's still early days. Jonas is out in front, but the time gap is a bit smaller today. Pogacar is in second place on six seconds. Remco is in third on 15, Isaac Del Toro in fourth on 16, Juan Ayuso is in fifth on 19 seconds, Paul Seixas on 42, Romain Grégoire on 44, Florian Lipowitz on 45, Lenny Martinez on 53 seconds, and Tom Pidcock on one minute even is our top 10 GC after two stages. In the jersey competition, we finally have points on the board since points were not given in the team time trial yesterday. Isaac Del Toro moves into the green jersey with 30 points. He's ahead of Alex Molenaar, who spent the day in the break. We'll talk about him in a second. Molenaar, has the King of the Mountains jersey, however, with five points, and Brandon McNulty is second there with four points. And Isaac Del Toro has also overtaken Juan Ayuso for the white jersey

Godsmedicinecycling 1:58

All right, on to our stage recap in brief. Today's narrative takeaway is basically it went how we expected, and all of the GC riders are still there. Since we are minutely tracking the politicking of Little Trek, however, we personally wanted to mention that it was a great day for Pedersen, but Skjelmose clearly had the latitude to attack and had some freedom to make moves, in the end stages of this race and wasn't being tied to Ayuso, although Ayuso, as you heard from the results, was not in any difficulty. In terms of how the stage itself went down, we had a break formation where a few teams tried their hand, but ultimately it was a very quick breakaway formation, and we ended up with a three-man break of Engelhardt, Van Den Broek, and Molenaar. There was a crash during break formation that included a lot of riders, including Biniam Girmay, but to the best of our knowledge, everybody got back on the bikes and was okay. That situation held up for a long time. When we get to the intermediate sprint is basically when the peloton starts to reel people back in. But the breakaway still takes those maximum green jersey points. That went to Molenaar. And then when the peloton came through for that intermediate sprint, Girmay won, clearly having recovered from his earlier crash, and then Pedersen came in second and Philipsen came in third. Q36.5 hit the front immediately after the sprint, and also UAE Team Emirates started to take big pulls on that mountain immediately afterwards and eventually shredded the lead of the breakaway. Del Toro had a bike change around 60Ks left in the stage. That was kind of the only thing that happened, major news before we hit the city circuit, but he did chase back on

hannah 3:37

Once we hit the city circuit, or rather right before we hit the city circuit, Paul Seixas also needed a bike change. He was able to pretty comfortably get back on. I don't think Decathlon was, was too concerned about that. The breakaway got caught before the hill repeats began as the GC teams all started to take control, and it was one Brandon McNulty who hit the front for UAE on the first lap of the circuit and then stayed there. He put in, honestly, a monster turn. He was there until partway through the third lap. All of the major players that you would expect to be there were there until McNulty handed off the lead with four and a half kilometers to go, at which point Tiesj Benoot took a monster pull as well, and just Tiesj absolutely shredded the group. Just guys were, were falling out the back left and right. Adam Yates took over with 800 meters left on the final climb to further thin out the field. We had a few attacks going over the top of this last climb, most notably from Tobias Halland Johannessen and Richard Carapaz, but the group more or less stayed together until Mathias Guermoz, who looked really good today, opened up a small gap on a descent with one and a half kilometers to go. He held that until 500 kilometers out, at which point Isaac Del Toro overtook him in a corner, hit the front, and rode it in with Tadej Pogačar for the stage win. A very comfortable looking Remco Evenepoel finished in third, and honestly kind of ideal finish for UAE as this ensured no bonus seconds went to Jonas Vingegaard

Godsmedicinecycling 5:01

Moving on to our preview of stage three, we do have a bit of a caveat here because at the time of recording, we're recording on Sunday right after the stage basically, there have been wildfires in the area and there will be a decision made on if there needs to be modifications to this course by the end of the day Sunday. So we don't have that now. We So we're just going to preview this as if the stage is going on per normal. So stage three, Granollers to Les Angles, is the first mountain stage of the tour. It is 195.9 k's and it starts... Correct, it starts with the category three, Cote de Saint-Feliu de Codines, which is 7.6 k's at an average grade and a 4.5%. There is an intermediate sprint with 25 green jersey points to offer, so that's gonna be something people go for at 98 k's, and then we will hit the category one Col de Tosques, 9.3 k's at an average of 6.5%, before we finish the stage with, correct, two more category three climbs to Les Angles, officially crossing to the French side of the Pyrenees. Bonus points will come into play because this stage has 10 seconds up for grabs from the first place finisher, six for second, and four for third

hannah 6:17

What should we be watching for? We at God's Medicine are excited because we think break formation can and should be really fun. Since we're starting with that Cat 3, these guys will have a launch pad. would very strongly recommend tuning into the start of this stage. It most likely will either be a breakaway stage that goes to the end and can win it, or Pogacar win from, from the Peloton. that being if UAE decides to control the Peloton or if any other team, quite frankly, decides to control the Peloton. Anybody who wants to go for the green jersey could try to get in that break. I don't think that many of the sprinters would be able to stay in the break all the way to the end of the stage, but I think that somebody like, for example, Mads Pedersen, could definitely make it into the early break, go for the intermediate sprint points, and then drop back. So we could see that. We could not. We'll see how that shakes out. If this does go breakaway, we're gonna get, I think, the first of this year's two, two race, double race stages, since there will be most likely a GC fight behind as well as the fight for the stage win from the breakaway

Godsmedicinecycling 7:28

In terms of stage predictions, we've got a little smorgasbord here for you guys. I want to start first with Aaron's men. He didn't look amazing today, but this kind of city circuit is not really what he's, best at, and I think he will be more comfortable in the mountains. We've seen Ineos already clearly just want to stick guys up front. Tobias Foss actually was up there today for quite a long time trucking, so they want to be in the mix. I could see him trying to go out and pull something and make a move

hannah 7:59

Somebody else who can make a move and who showed today that he is ready to do it is Richard Carapaz, with the asterisk that also, like, many/any of his teammates could do that with him. I think Alex Baudin looked really good today. Ben Healy we haven't seen much of yet, but tomorrow kind of has his name written all over it. Steinhauser's a good climber, could be a good candidate. I think Carapaz is hungry. I think he was, he was sort of ready to throw a gauntlet today, and it just didn't shake out in his favor, but he has got the energy for it. So I wouldn't be surprised to see him shaking things up.

Godsmedicinecycling 8:29

Carapaz is always ready to throw out a gauntlet. He basically shows up to the race with, like, a bunch of gloves in his back pocket and he's just... We had another team where we had two strong finishers today, which is Higuita and Tejada, who are both on Astana, and they both looked good today. I think they both can climb the mountains. They seem like they're in shape, and perhaps we'll see one or both of them trying to make it out into the breakaway

hannah 8:56

Disclaimer before this next pick, if you're sick of hearing us talk about Ilan Van Wilder, this is not the podcast for you, 'cause we're gonna keep doing it. Tomorrow could be for him. had a pretty good day today. I don't think anybody's concerned about him as far as him being a potential GC contender, so I think he'd be allowed into the break even though he's relatively high up at the moment. And it looks like a good parkour for him

Godsmedicinecycling 9:18

Someone we haven't really seen much so far, but no surprise given the terrain we've covered, is Michael Storer. But Tudor is definitely going to be looking to send him on some mountain raids. And, kind of any time there's a decent amount of climbing involved, I'm liking Michael Storer. If he's feeling good this tour, I think we will be continuing to say his name

hannah 9:39

Fully agreed. And then finally, if this doesn't go breakaway, if somebody controls and the bonus points are in play at the end, I do think Tadej Pogačar kind of will put his stamp on this one again. Or somebody from... He'll try to get del Toro over the line first or something. They'll try to do something similar to today and secure those bonus points

Godsmedicinecycling 9:57

So that is us wrapped up for the Tour in 10. Thank you so much for tuning in. We will see you tomorrow, and I just want to give a quick shout-out. If any of our listeners have recently won the lottery and would like to give us a bunch of money, our email, is godsmedicinecycling@gmail.com. Just go ahead and send us, your details. We'll set up a little transfer, and we could be doing even more podcasting, because that's what everyone wants Um I feel like we could also put Pidcock in for stage predictions

hannah 10:27

Do you think tomorrow's a Tom Peacock day?

Godsmedicinecycling 10:28

Hannah, I think any day is a Tom Peacock day if you try hard and believe in yourself

hannah 10:34

Is that what Tom Peacock says to himself every day when he looks in the mirror?

Godsmedicinecycling 10:37

If it is, then I have to take some of that juice because it's working.

hannah 10:41

it's

Godsmedicinecycling 10:41

It's working for him. I'm not world champion in anything, and he's been world champion in a couple things, so I'm comfortable taking a leaf out of his book