{"id":780923,"date":"2026-07-05T02:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T02:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/780923\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T02:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T02:07:10","slug":"tour-de-france-2026-jonas-vingegaard-in-yellow-after-barcelona-team-time-trial-tour-de-france-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/780923\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France 2026: Jonas Vingegaard in yellow after Barcelona team time trial | Tour de France 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonas Vingegaard stunned Tadej Pogacar, the defending champion, by taking the first yellow jersey of the 2026 Tour de France after his Visma-Lease a Bike team won the opening stage of this year\u2019s race, a 19.6km team time trial in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Two years after a life-threatening crash, Vingegaard, who won this year\u2019s Giro d\u2019Italia, looks back to his best. \u201cIt feels amazing to have the yellow jersey again,\u201d said the Dane, the Tour champion in 2022 and 2023. \u201cIt\u2019s been three years and it\u2019s one of the most beautiful jerseys in cycling. It\u2019s the perfect start for our race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if this yellow jersey was the most treasured of his career, he replied: \u201cI would say so. Being back in yellow is important. I will enjoy every moment that I\u2019m wearing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vingegaard crashed at speed while racing in the Basque country in April 2024 and was taken to intensive care with broken ribs, sternum and collarbone, and a punctured lung. \u201cIt\u2019s been a few hard years for me for obvious reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been struggling at times, but now I feel like I can close this chapter. Lying on the ground thinking that I was going to die will always be part of my book. I didn\u2019t think about cycling, I just thought about trying to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Danish rider threw down the gauntlet to his longstanding rival Pogacar, beating the Slovenian by 12 seconds at the uphill finish in Montju\u00efc. But the stage was also a near miss for Filippo Ganna, of Netcompany Ineos, who came within eight seconds of taking the first yellow jersey for the Dave Brailsford-managed team since Egan Bernal won the Tour in 2019.<\/p>\n

Jonas Vingegaard cycles past the Palau Nacional on Montju\u00efc. Photograph: Jeff Pachoud\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

As a barometer of the form of the Tour\u2019s favourites, all were present and correct, with the French hope Paul Seixas and a leaned-down Remco Evenepoel both looking a force to contend with.<\/p>\n

The mainly flat route suited the powerhouse time trialling characteristics of Ganna and the newly rebranded Ineos team. Under the watchful eye of Netcompany\u2019s CEO, Andr\u00e9 Rogaczewski, the eight-man team were fastest through all the checkpoints and appeared set for the best time, until their nominated leader, K\u00e9vin Vauquelin, had a puncture on the approach to Montju\u00efc, losing a minute by the finish.<\/p>\n

With the Frenchman distanced, leadership passed to the former world time trial champion Ganna, who powered up the final 800m to set the fastest time by more than half a minute.<\/p>\n

That lead remained intact until Vingegaard came into view, pummeling the pedals in the heat of the late afternoon, to record his best time trial performance since 2023, when he beat Pogacar by almost seven and half minutes.<\/p>\n

While the old rivals seem destined to lock horns in the days to come, it was a solid, if unspectacular start by the French favourite Seixas, who set the second fastest time, until he was distanced by 39 seconds from the race lead by Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

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Groupama-FDJ United ride past the Sagrada Fam\u00edlia. Photograph: Thibault Camus\/AP<\/p>\n

\u201cWe limited the damage today and I felt good,\u201d the 19-year-old said. \u201cWe expected to see gaps like that. We did the best we could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogacar\u2019s preparations had already suffered one setback when he and his team arrived at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya motor racing track, north of the city, to hone their time-trialling strategy but, having failed to book a session in advance, were denied access. Last-minute attempts to persuade the Total Energies and Decathlon teams to share their 90-minute allocations failed, leaving the four-time winner\u2019s team lacking in vital preparation.<\/p>\n

High temperatures and gusting winds are causing a threat to stage three of the race, with the Tour organisation monitoring wildfires in northern Catalunya and also on the border with France. More than two thousand firefighters are battling fires along France\u2019s Mediterranean coast and Perpignan airport has been closed. Monday\u2019s third stage heads north into France\u2019s Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-Orientales d\u00e9partement and a finish in Les Angles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonas Vingegaard stunned Tadej Pogacar, the defending champion, by taking the first yellow jersey of the 2026 Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-780923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780923","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=780923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}