Tour de France Stage 20: Carapaz Wins after Kuss Heartbreak, Pogačar Pulls Del Toro to White Jersey

Richard Carapaz won his second stage of the 2026 Tour de France on Saturday after Sepp Kuss suffered a heart-breaking near miss in a nail-biting high-mountain finale.

Kuss was solo at the front of Saturday’s 20th stage through the Alps when he crashed twice inside the final 7km, leaving the chasing Carapaz to steam past and take victory on Alpe d’Huez.

Kuss’ devastation wasn’t over after his second crash at around 5km from the line.

Remco Evenepoel denied him the second-place finish after the Belgian caught and passed him inside the final 50 meters.

It was a bitter finish for the Coloradan after he narrowly finished fourth on Alpe d’Huez only one day earlier.

Evenepoel finished second after he attacked away from a small GC group inside the final kilometers of the summit finish to Alpe d’Huez.

Tadej Pogačar led his teammate Isaac del Toro to the line to give UAE Emirates a 4-5 finish on the stage and a near-guaranteed 1-3 on the final podium.

Pogačar the yellow jersey MVP

Pogačar played teammate for the Del Toro through the back-half of Saturday’s stage to seal the Mexican’s white jersey.

Del Toro’s rival Paul Seixas cracked after Pogačar began playing pacemaker in this gruesome “Queen Stage.” Seixas lost 1:50 to his young rider classification foe but did enough to hang on to fourth.

Speaking at the finish, Pogačar hailed the help of Del Toro and his teammates through the past 20 stages of the Tour.

“People will now talk how I helped Isaac to the podium, but first of all he helped me to ride for yellow, and the rest of the team,” Pogačar said at the finish.

“Today it was an honor to ride for Isaac in the last one and a half hours,” Pogačar said. “I did it with pleasure and learned how hard it is to ride for somebody else. To come together to the line, it’s a memorable achievement.”

There were no changes in GC after a stage that likely cements the standings ahead of a shortened, modified stage in Paris on Sunday.

Pogačar is 6:26 ahead of Evenepoel on GC and all-but guaranteed a record-equaling fifth yellow jersey.

Del Toro is third, more than two minutes ahead of Seixas.

“I did really good this Tour, so did the team. But there was bad luck for competitors. It’s three weeks, a lot of shit can happen, and we made it through,” Pogačar said.

Mountain misery in the high Alps

The Tour de France route organizers saved the worst to (almost) last Saturday. This 20th stage was disgustingly hard.

In fact, the raw stats made it one of the hardest Tour de France stages in history.

The “queen stage” of this year’s race loaded 5,450m of climbing into 171km.

The historic climbs of Col du Croix Fer (Hors Categorie), Télégraphe (Cat.1) and Galibier (Hors Categorie) served the beaten-down peloton a procession of pain before a back-road approach to the Alpe d’Huez.

The bunch approached the ski town via the narrow, ramped climb of the 13km Col du Sarenne and tricky 10km plateau road.

Carapaz and Pedersen secure polka and green

A who’s who of hitters made the day’s break on the Croix de Fer.

Carapaz made the split to raid the summits and all-but seal the KoM classification. Mads Pedersen hauled his cobble-bashing frame over the 25km Croix de Fer to take the intermediate sprint and secure the green jersey.

Only five riders remained out front ahead of the climb to the 2,600m high Galibier.

Carapaz, Kuss, Matthew Riccitello, and Jai Hindley were there.

Crucially, so too was Juan Ayuso. The Spaniard hemorrhaged time and slid down the GC on stage 19 and was on the rampage to move back up.

However, the mission failed for Ayuso when the GC group came blasting past the remants of the breakaway in the final 10km. He finished the stage in the same position he started.

The attackers took more than 5 minutes of a gap over the Galbier ascent and into the 30km descent toward Sarenne.

Riccitello was gapped on the downhill to leave four out front at the base of the Sarenne.

Kuss kicks, crashes, finishes third

Kuss made the first major move from the attacking group.

After being stung by start-stop-tactics while on the attack on Alpe d’Huez, the Eagle of Colorado flew solo in the early kilometers of the 13km climb of the Sarenne.

He got the gap and held it for several kilometers, was caught by Carapaz and Hindley, and went again at 18km to go.

Kuss’ second move look liked it would stick.

The 31-year-old took a 20-second gap over the summit of the Sarenne and held his lead over Carapaz on the rolling plateau toward Alpe d’Huez.

The Durango star looked set for the stage win as he entered the final 7km with around 15 seconds of a lead.

But it all unraveled in dramatic fashion.

Kuss crashed twice in the space of two kilometers inside the final 7km. The first fall appeared to be relatively undramatic, but footage of the second revealed he was only saved from tumbling down a ravine by the fence netting across the exposed roadside.

Kuss was straight back to his feet after his second crash, but Carapaz went rocketing past.

Pogačar plays superdomestique, Seixas cracks

Pogačar turned pacemaker on the Col du Galibier as the stage tipped into the final 70km.

When all UAE’s domestiques cracked out of the GC peloton, the yellow jersey rode the front for Del Toro. It initially sparked questions whether the yellow jersey was pulling for his teammate or was greedy for a 6th stage win.

It later became apparent it was likely a bit of both.

Seixas dropped out of the race for white on the Sarenne. Ironically, the 19-year-old was gapped soon after his very own teammates on Decathlon CMA CGM tried to light it up to put time on Del Toro.

Pogačar started piling on at the front of the GC group inside the final 10km, but it was too late to secure a stage win.

A small group of top climbers came to the final 3km together before Evenepoel accelerated late to secure a few consolation seconds.

Tour de France stage 20 results