{"id":743894,"date":"2026-06-18T01:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/743894\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T01:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:10:14","slug":"tour-de-suisse-stage-1-pogacar-crushes-tour-de-france-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/743894\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de Suisse Stage 1: Poga\u010dar Crushes Tour de France Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tour de Suisse stage 1: Poga\u010dar blows everybody&#8217;s doors off with 69km solo rampage as he puts the finishing touches on his Tour de France form.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to this articleListen<img alt=\"Poga\u010dar Tour de Suisse\" src=\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2282062000.jpg\" data-loaded=\"true\" fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1440\" height=\"683\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\"  bad-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2282062000.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"fp-leadCaption py-tight text-left font-utility text-utility3-size leading-utility3-line-height text-secondary\"> (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Updated June 17, 2026 10:22AM<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"text-brand-primary underline hover:text-brand-primary\/85 break-words overflow-wrap-anywhere underline-offset-[3px]\" data-afl-p=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/tag\/tadej-pogacar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> reminded everyone who\u2019s the six-star favorite for the <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"text-brand-primary underline hover:text-brand-primary\/85 break-words overflow-wrap-anywhere underline-offset-[3px]\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-afl-p=\"0\" href=\"http:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/tag\/tour-de-france\">Tour de France<\/a> with a devastating solo raid on Wednesday at the <a target=\"_self\" class=\"text-brand-primary underline hover:text-brand-primary\/85 break-words overflow-wrap-anywhere underline-offset-[3px]\" data-afl-p=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/tag\/tour-de-suisse\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tour de Suisse.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar breezed away from the group of favorites, toyed with a doomed breakaway rider, and then romped to a 69km solo victory on the opening stage of the 5-day race.<\/p>\n<p>He crossed the line 2:14 ahead of lone chaser Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) after a rampage that was on par with his soloes at Strade Bianche and the 2024 road world championships.<\/p>\n<p>Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek) came to the line third at 2:29 after he made a blazing late chase for Carapaz but couldn\u2019t quite make the catch.<\/p>\n<p>It was a beyond-emphatic start for the Poga\u010dar as he puts the final touches on his Tour de France form.<\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar hails textbook set-up by UAE Emirates XRG<\/p>\n<p>Even more concerning for Jonas Vingegaard and Co., Poga\u010dar\u2019s teammates at UAE Emirates-XRG looked on-point on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Brandon McNulty delivered the final pulls for Poga\u010dar\u2019s attack. The Arizonan then disrupted the chase with his UAE henchmen Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez and Felix Gro\u00dfschartner.<\/p>\n<p>All three of them are slated to line up behind Poga\u010dar at the Grand D\u00e9part in Barcelona next month.<\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar made it look easy Wednesday, but denied it was just some training ride.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was hard. It was a really hard day,\u201d he said in his winner\u2019s interview. \u201cThe start was easy, but with the first climb of the day, it was already super hard. The team did an amazing pace there. Then me and Brandon [McNulty] looked at each other and said \u2018let\u2019s go, we\u2019ll try something\u2019 and from then on we just went.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was definitely not the plan today, but somehow it worked,\u201d he continued. \u201cThanks to the team, because without blocking and setting the pace before that, this wouldn\u2019t have been possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar silences doubts after off-key ride in Romandie<br \/>\n<img alt=\"Poga\u010dar Tour de Suisse\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-989543\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2281437584.jpg\"\/>It was game over when Poga\u010dar went solo at 69km to go of Tour de Suisse. (Photo: Marco BERTORELLO \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>After a typically dominant but slightly <a target=\"_self\" class=\"text-brand-primary underline hover:text-brand-primary\/85 break-words overflow-wrap-anywhere underline-offset-[3px]\" data-afl-p=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france-countdown-for-pogacar-rivals\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">off-key ride at the Tour de Romandie<\/a> in early May, this was peak Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n<p>The four-time Tour de France champion looked two levels above what\u2019s a low-key GC field. Carapaz, Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, and Lenny Martinez are the only riders with a chance of stopping him from winning the Swiss race on debut this week.<\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar\u2019s initial move off the front of a small split of classification riders at 72km to go of Wednesday\u2019s stage <a target=\"_blank\" class=\"text-brand-primary underline hover:text-brand-primary\/85 break-words overflow-wrap-anywhere underline-offset-[3px]\" data-afl-p=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Eurosport_ES\/status\/2067255205138149538\" rel=\"nofollow\">looked like it was almost a mistake.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He floated up to breakaway rider Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) and then dispatched the Norseman without drawing breath.<\/p>\n<p>When Poga\u010dar got clear at 69km to go, he held his gap at a steady 70-90 seconds before he opened the turbos in the final 40km of the short, hilly course.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had no radio so I didn\u2019t know what was going on behind so I just kept riding hard,\u201d Poga\u010dar said after the stage. \u201cWhen I knew the gap was quite big I could settle into the rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carapaz began his solo pursuit at around 50km to go, but the Ecuadorian must have known he was racing for second.<\/p>\n<p>Bagioli hung around in the bunch until around 20km to go until he launched out for third.<\/p>\n<p>The TLDR from stage 1 of the Tour de Suisse?<\/p>\n<p>Tour de France hopefuls, be warned \u2013 King Pog is back, and he\u2019s moving fast.<\/p>\n<p>Tour de Suisse stage 1 results:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tour de Suisse stage 1: Poga\u010dar blows everybody&#8217;s doors off with 69km solo rampage as he puts the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":743895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[168574,49,48,635,54263,82,266633,54266,62850,266634,240533,54267],"class_list":["post-743894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-audio-true","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-road","tag-sports","tag-tag-richard-carapaz","tag-tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tag-tour-de-france","tag-tag-tour-de-suisse","tag-tag-uae-emirates-xrg","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/743895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}