{"id":829132,"date":"2026-07-27T12:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T12:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/829132\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T12:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T12:05:12","slug":"van-der-poel-wins-absolutely-wild-tour-de-france-finale-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/829132\/","title":{"rendered":"Van der Poel wins absolutely wild Tour de France finale in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

You could not have written a better finish to the 2026 Tour de France<\/a> than Stage 21. (Apart from maybe an 88-km solo by Derek Gee-West.)<\/p>\n

Alpecin-Premier Tech\u2019s Mathieu van der Poel capped the 2026 Tour de France with one of the most dramatic stage wins of his career, (and he\u2019s had many, talking to you, 2019 Amstel) surviving a late charge from the peloton to claim Stage 21 in Paris. Just behind him, Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> crossed the line after securing his fifth overall Tour title.<\/p>\n

Stage 21<\/p>\n

There was already a bit of drama before the final stage began. Stage 21 was reshaped before the start after organizers shortened the route in response to wildfires near Versailles, eliminating the good old procession into Paris. That meant the team cars had to put away the champs and the riders had to wrap up the photo ops quickly, because the racing was on almost immediately.<\/p>\n

GC times were also frozen before the riders reached the first time up Montmartre, ensuring the yellow jersey battle was settled before the attacking began. It was potentially a controversial move, given that Isaac Del Toro finished a bit behind. Last year, it was super-sketchy and rainy so it made sense. This year though\u2026<\/p>\n

Game on<\/p>\n

Once the race reached the famous climb, the pace exploded.<\/p>\n

Van der Poel, Poga\u010dar and Mads Pedersen were among the first riders to split the race, although the peloton regrouped before the second ascent. On that climb, Poga\u010dar launched a fierce acceleration that only Van der Poel could initially match before Remco Evenepoel and Pedersen bridged back to form a powerful lead group.<\/p>\n

The race came back together once more, setting up one final showdown on the last trip over Montmartre. Van der Poel attacked over the top, with Poga\u010dar glued to his wheel, and the pair built a slender advantage as the kilometres ticked down.<\/p>\n

The peloton, led by teams working for the sprinters, closed rapidly in the final kilometres. Poga\u010dar sat up and was swallowed up just before the finish (something you don\u2019t read much), but Van der Poel somehow found one final burst of speed, holding off the fast-closing bunch by barely a bike length.
His teammate Jasper Philipsen completed the team\u2019s celebration by sprinting to second, with Lidl-Trek\u2019s Mads Pedersen taking third, while Poga\u010dar rolled home to officially clinch another Tour de France crown.<\/p>\n

What. A. Day.<\/p>\n

And although the Tour de France Fellas is now officially over, the Tour de France Femmes is about to begin. Canadian Cycling Magazine will have full reports of the race\u2013in which you\u2019ll see a bunch of Canucks. Start lists are still being finalized, but look for a preview soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You could not have written a better finish to the 2026 Tour de France than Stage 21. (Apart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-829132","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\/829132","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=829132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}