{"id":786771,"date":"2026-07-07T20:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/786771\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T20:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T20:18:08","slug":"grateful-traeen-takes-yellow-jersey-after-pedersen-wins-stage-four-amid-40c-heat-tour-de-france-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/786771\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Grateful\u2019 Tr\u00e6en takes yellow jersey after Pedersen wins stage four amid 40C heat | Tour de France 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emergency measures were implemented by the Tour de France<\/a> organisers to combat the crushing heatwave that has settled on the race this year as the riders tackled stage four, at the end of which the cancer survivor Torstein Tr\u00e6en had stolen the yellow jersey and built an eight-minute lead on the four-time champion Tadej Pogacar.<\/p>\n

The peloton was fried by 40C-plus conditions over 181 gruelling kilometres and four categorised climbs as they raced towards Foix through the Aude and Ari\u00e8ge regions.<\/p>\n

The UCI, the sport\u2019s governing body, said that it and the Tour organiser, ASO, had decided to \u201csoften the provisions governing rider feeding in light of the extreme heat forecast over coming stages of the Tour\u201d.<\/p>\n

As the former world champion Mads Pedersen sped clear to win the sprint into Foix with ease, it was a memorable day for Tr\u00e6en, the 30-year-old who was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2022. The Norwegian\u2019s diagnosis was revealed after a random doping control showed abnormalities. He underwent immediate surgery but returned to racing with a clean bill of health later that season. After his successful surgery to remove a tumour, he posted: \u201cI got 99 problems, but cancer ain\u2019t one of them (any more).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of all I am grateful to perform at the Tour,\u201d Tr\u00e6en said after taking the maillot jaune. \u201cIt\u2019s a pleasure to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ninth overall in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a last year, he is now leading the world\u2019s biggest bike race by almost eight minutes from Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, who are both on the same time overall.<\/p>\n

The emergency measures on Tuesday\u2019s stage included extra water bottles and more drinks motorbikes than usual implemented on a trial basis, given the extreme weather shrouding the Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go to France or Spain we all know it\u2019s going to be hot and we have a good cooling protocol,\u201d Pedersen said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure if it was dangerous or unhealthy there would be no racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tr\u00e6en said that he was \u201cdoing pretty well\u201d surviving the heat. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s better to be in the breakaway than in the peloton, as it\u2019s easier to get drinks up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the UCI has again been criticised for not going far enough. \u201cIt\u2019s the least worst option,\u201d Pascal Chanteur of the professional riders\u2019 union said of the additional measures. \u201cIt\u2019s not fixing the problem. When the temperature goes over 40 degrees, the government takes measures to protect the public. The riders are in the population, they\u2019re working outside, exposed to the conditions. We can no longer race in conditions like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the teams, the organisers, the UCI, to agree to changing race start times, from June to September, to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change. The priority is the health of the athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Torstein Tr\u00e6en wears the overall leader\u2019s yellow jersey after the fourth stage. Photograph: Thibault Camus\/AP<\/p>\n

It has long been part of the Tour\u2019s tradition of survival and sufferance that canicule conditions \u2013 broiling heatwaves \u2013 have to be endured. That may soon change. Riders have fallen victim to extreme heat in the past, including the British former world champion Tom Simpson, who collapsed and died in 1967 due to a combination of heat exhaustion and amphetamine use.<\/p>\n

Since late May, professional racing has been staged in furnace conditions, with increasing numbers of influential figures lobbying for a change to the structure of high\u2011summer races.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that will change racing,\u201d Jonathan Vaughters, manager of Ben Healy\u2019s EF Education-EasyPost team, said of the high temperatures. \u201cSome riders will deal well with it, some won\u2019t. Some teams won\u2019t too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vingegaard\u2019s manager, Richard Plugge, said the heat posed a greater threat to the spectators than the riders. \u201cThe riders are fit,\u201d Plugge said. \u201cThey are used to riding in the heat and we cool them well. We give them ice vests at the start and ice socks in their jersey. But if the public is standing next to the road for five hours in scorching heat, that\u2019s something else. That\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Plugge also suggested that the Tour would lose an essential part of its appeal, of being raced in the heat of the day, if the stages were moved to a significantly earlier start time. \u201cPeople watch it at four or five in the afternoon, as they finish work, after school. If it starts at nine in the morning, they can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emergency measures were implemented by the Tour de France organisers to combat the crushing heatwave that has settled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-786771","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\/786771","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=786771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}