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<\/p>\nThe sight that brought it home was the slender figure of Valentin Paret-Peintre, slumped against the barriers on the summit of Alpe d\u2019Huez, sobbing and mourning the loss of his polka-dot jersey.<\/p>\n
With the Tour lacking a French stage winner for the first time since 1999, the king of the mountains award was one of the country\u2019s final hopes of bringing honor to Paris.<\/p>\n
For many years, the mountains classification has not been the most storied of jerseys. A design loved by fans, yes, a novelty, but a footnote in the race, a way for broadcasters to fill dead air time at the beginning of Alpine stages. For four of the past six years, with highest-value points saved for mountain finishes, it has been won by the yellow jersey \u2014 three times to Tadej Poga\u010dar (2020, 2021, 2025) and once by Jonas Vingegaard (2022).<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s winner, 33-year-old Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, was not originally supposed to be at the Tour. His original goal was the Giro d\u2019Italia this spring, a race he had almost won the previous year, only for an operation on a perineal cyst to rule him out of the battle for pink. He could not sit on the bike to train for three weeks.<\/p>\n
That injury has long healed \u2014 but Carapaz is still seemingly incapable of sitting in his saddle, permanently on his pedals and on the attack, chasing rivals, stages, and the polka-dot jersey.<\/p>\n
With Poga\u010dar all but sealing yellow less than a week into the race, the Tour\u2019s Alpine denouement could have been anticlimactic. Instead, the battle for the other three jerseys \u2014 polka dot, white, and green \u2014 has animated this race, with the trio finally and only settled on stage 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been incredible this year,\u201d said a beaming Carapaz, having become the first rider to win a stage in the polka-dot jersey since Julian Alaphilippe in 2018, atop Alpe d\u2019Huez no less.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only this fight, but for the green and white as well. There have been many interests \u2014 and that has made the race harder and harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Carapaz has now won the King of the Mountains competition in two of the last three editions of the Tour de France. (Jeff Pachoud \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Mads Pedersen and his Lidl-Trek team have resolved to push the pace even on easier sprint stages. For Pedersen, the green jersey was a non-negotiable. The team was built around his pursuit of the points classification. General classification climbers Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose were largely left to their own devices. Talented riders such as Quinn Simmons and Mathias Vacek were requisitioned in support of their sprinter, who was aiming to become the first Dane to win the green jersey.<\/p>\n
Knowing he was not the fastest man in the bunch, Pedersen aimed to capitalize on the intermediate sprints \u2014 efforts midway through every stage worth fewer points (25 for the first rider) than the finishes \u2014 and backed his ability to climb better than the other sprinters to access the points on offer during hilly or mountainous stages.<\/p>\n
It meant that Lidl-Trek ramped up the pace on any sprint stage with only a small bump, hoping to drop Tim Merlier and Olav Kooij, and leading to attacking racing from the front of the bunch.<\/p>\n
Though his lead was briefly cut to seven points by Jasper Philipsen after stage 18, Pedersen\u2019s intermediate sprint wins over the next three days secured his green jersey. The 30-year-old won 68 percent of his points in intermediate sprints \u2014 and 80 percent of the total number of intermediate sprint points on offer.<\/p>\n
For much of the race, his fight with Philipsen and Merlier was a battle of opposites; the true fast men against one of the most versatile and powerful riders in the peloton.<\/p>\n
There is a debate over whether it is right that a rider who was not, truly, among the five fastest sprinters in the race should be awarded the \u2018sprinters\u2019 jersey\u2019 \u2014 but Merlier failed to finish the race because of his lack of climbing legs, while Philipsen was out of form. Pedersen was the deserving winner \u2014 at times, appearing to be a worthy successor to the legendary Peter Sagan<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n Pedersen worked heroically in the week three mountains to secure his green jersey. (Loic Venance \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Isaac del Toro and Paul Seixas\u2019 duel was a battle for third place, in the main, but also for the white jersey \u2014 a prize that both riders mentioned when discussing the motivations behind their own races.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the running for the yellow jersey and then also the white jersey,\u201d Poga\u010dar said of his support for Del Toro.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286909784-scaled.jpg\")
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