{"id":546895,"date":"2026-07-18T00:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T00:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/546895\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T00:42:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T00:42:24","slug":"tom-pidcock-surges-up-standings-while-mauro-schmid-wins-tour-de-france-stage-13-tour-de-france-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/546895\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Pidcock surges up standings while Mauro Schmid wins Tour de France stage 13 | Tour de France 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Pidcock leapt up the overall standings in the Tour de France<\/a>, briefly climbing as high as second place, after a fulminating stage to Belfort ended in a first Tour win for Switzerland\u2019s Mauro Schmid.<\/p>\n

Pidcock was one of the key instigators of a mass breakaway that formed on the rolling roads of the Jura and Doubs, on the long approach to the 9km climb of the Ballon d\u2019Alsace, overlooking Belfort.<\/p>\n

A stage that the race leader, Tadej Pogacar<\/a>, had described as \u201cweird\u201d produced an unexpected outcome as Pidcock, who had started the day 7min 43sec behind Remco Evenepoel, moved into fourth place overall, only nine seconds behind the Belgian.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always the objective to make it into a break,\u201d the double Olympic gold medallist, riding for Pinarello\u2013Q36.5, said. \u201cI think it worked out perfectly. I was also after the stage win, but it was difficult in the end without any teammates. But I can\u2019t be disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogacar, meanwhile, is edging closer to a fifth Tour de France win, which would officially tie him with the other five-time winners \u2013 Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indur\u00e1in.<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong won seven Tours before being stripped of them all for doping. Asked whether he considered the record for Tour wins to be five or seven, Pogacar smiled and batted the question away. \u201cI got this question in the morning,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t say anything. I don\u2019t go for records, I just want to finish this Tour with yellow in Paris. This is the main focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The longest stage of the 2026 Tour was another fast and furious race and for once the breakaway did succeed. A third of the peloton was unleashed on the rolling road to the Ballon d\u2019Alsace as Pogacar and his UAE Emirates XRG team finally loosened their grip on the peloton.<\/p>\n

Mauro Schmid celebrates as he crosses the line in Belfort. Photograph: David Pintens\/Belga\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Exhibiting the first signs of fatigue immediately after the stage finish, a red-eyed Pogacar described the peloton as \u201cflying\u201d.<\/p>\n

The biggest winner of the original group of 37 that grew to more than 50, but finally dwindled once they entered the climbs of the Vosges, was Pidcock, who also took third place in the sprint finish behind Schmid.<\/p>\n

Pidcock\u2019s uneven Tour has seen him almost win in Ussel, crash into a parked car in Le Lioran and hover on the edge of the top 10 but he is now clearly becoming more competitive as the race continues and can reasonably start to contemplate a top-five result.<\/p>\n

For a rider who in the past had admitted that he finds the demands of the three-week Tour mentally draining, Pidcock has found his focus at just the right moment. A stage winner on Alpe d\u2019Huez in 2022, Pidcock faces five days of racing before the peloton returns there on 24 and 25 July for back-to-back stage finishes.<\/p>\n

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The high speeds and mass break on the road to Belfort were further indications of how the absence of many sprint stages has affected the race. \u201cEveryone\u2019s looking for opportunities because they are few and far between,\u201d the Netcompany Ineos director of racing, Geraint Thomas, said. \u201cObviously the Paris stage has changed now and it does put more emphasis on the sprinter days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Pidcock (second left) grimaces as he crosses the line but his efforts take him up to fourth in the GC. Photograph: David Pintens\/Belga\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Even so, there is a feeling that some in the peloton have also been keeping their powder dry for the intimidating final week, which includes five summit finishes, the first two of which come this weekend at Le Markstein and the Plateau de Solaison.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the earlier stages you definitely saw that, when there was only one rider even trying,\u201d the EF Education Easy Post sports director, Charly Wegelius, said. \u201cThat told a story about the fatigue and what was coming down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

With so many of the Tour\u2019s stages favouring Pogacar and his UAE team, Wegelius said there was a realisation that \u201cso-called medium mountain stages could be out of reach and lumpy sprint days have become quite hotly contested\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pidcock\u2019s elevation to a higher ranking overall has also created a further headache for the second-placed Jonas Vingegaard, who now has to monitor riders from four different teams: Evenepoel, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Pinarello Q36.5 and Pidcock, Juan Ayuso of Lidl-Trek and the French teenager Paul Seixas, riding for Decathlon CMA CGM, as the race heads into a tough weekend of mountain racing in the Vosges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Pidcock leapt up the overall standings in the Tour de France, briefly climbing as high as second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-546895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}