{"id":1939845,"date":"2026-05-17T07:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1939845"},"modified":"2026-05-17T07:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:12:07","slug":"tour-de-france-roadmap-what-the-favorites-are-doing-and-what-that-means-for-the-yellow-jersey-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1939845","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France Roadmap: What the Favorites Are Doing and What That Means for the Yellow Jersey Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"
In case you missed the memo while you\u2019ve been watching Jonas Vingeagaard at the Giro: The countdown to the Tour de France has officially begun.<\/p>\n
Vingegaard, Tadej Poga\u010dar, Remco Evenepoel, and new kid on the block Paul Seixas will be on the start line in Barcelona in less than seven weeks.<\/p>\n
From now until July 4, every day matters for this \u201cBig 4\u201d of the 2026 Tour.<\/p>\n
And each one of them couldn\u2019t have chosen more different ways to spend them.<\/p>\n
Remco\u2019s in recovery. Seixas is in hiding (or he should be). Pogi is \u2026 being Pogi. And Vingegaard is gambling on an audacious double.<\/p>\n
Here are the pathways, priorities, and potential potholes the yellow jersey bigs face in the next seven weeks.<\/p>\n
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Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Emirates-XRG)<\/h2>\nDeath, taxes, Poga\u010dar winning races \u2013 the inevitabilities of modern life.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Tour de France stakes:<\/strong> A place alongside only four others to have won the yellow jersey five times. A little more of a grip on cycling immortality.<\/p>\n
Last race: <\/strong>Pogi won four stages and the overall at the Tour de Romandie earlier this month while mouth-breathing. It was ruthless, efficient, and a rare glimpse of Pogi in eco mode.<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s doing now:<\/strong> Poga\u010dar bounded up to Sierra Nevada on Friday 15 May, and he\u2019ll stay there for around three weeks. He\u2019ll return to sea level ahead of Tour de Suisse in mid-June before one last altitude top-up in Isola 2000 the week before the grand d\u00e9part<\/em>. Because you can never have enough unoxygenated air, so to speak.<\/p>\n
Next race:<\/strong>Tour de Suisse, starting June 17.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar\u2019s top rivals in the 5-day tour will be Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Matteo Jorgenson. Anything less than a Pog-bliteration will be an upset.<\/p>\n
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What Poga\u010dar has to do now: Stay safe in Suisse, strip weight<\/h3>\nPoga\u010dar suggested after he won Tour de Romandie he needs to drop a few kilos.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Getting through Tour de Suisse safe, healthy, and without trying too hard is priority No.1.<\/p>\n
Suisse finishes only two weeks ahead of the grand d\u00e9part.<\/em> Poga\u010dar hasn\u2019t risked racing so close to the Tour\u2019s big start since 2022, when he used Slovenia as his final hit-out.<\/p>\n
Many Tour de France aspirants \u2013 including Seixas \u2013 have chosen the extra week of breathing room offered by the Dauphin\u00e9, which starts a week before Suisse.<\/p>\n
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Priority No.2? Poga\u010dar claimed he needs to drop a few pounds after bulking up for the classics.<\/p>\n
He will be threading a very fine needle by chasing both race weight and raw power in the next few weeks. Those two things don\u2019t go hand-in-hand. But this is Poga\u010dar \u2013 this guy has got more room for error than most.<\/p>\n
Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA-CGM)<\/h2>\nSeixas uncorked a career-topping win in April at Fl\u00e8che and went on to challenge Poga\u010dar at LBL.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Tour de France stakes:<\/strong> Becoming the youngest Tour de France winner in history and the first French champion in 41 years. Daily coverage in L\u2019Equipe<\/em> \u2018til death.<\/p>\n
Last race: <\/strong>Seixas set all of France into a fluster when he romped across the Basque Country, up the Mur de Huuy, and ended up second behind Poga\u010dar at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge in late April. This was the coming-out party that proved young Paul could be a Pog-slayer.<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s doing now:<\/strong> Seixas started his altitude camp in Sierra Nevada on 13 May. He\u2019ll likely be there for around three weeks before he comes to sea level to clip into his racing shoes.<\/p>\n
Next race: Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 (i.e. Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes), June 7.<\/strong><\/p>\n
With Poga\u010dar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel all absent, Seixas will be one of the absolute favorites. Crazy thing to say for a 19-year-old. His main rival? Poga\u010dar\u2019s sidekick, Isaac del Toro.<\/p>\n
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What Seixas has to do now: Stay calm<\/h3>\nSeixas might want to avoid the media glare for the next few weeks.<\/span> (Photo: JEFF PACHOUD \/ AFP via Getty Images)\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The best thing Seixas can do right now is stay calm and stay away from annoying people like us in the media.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s shown he\u2019s got the watts to match Poga\u010dar across all gradients and all scenarios. The only thing the 19-year-old is lacking is experience and a six-hour day, 21-day engine. And not even the most meticulous altitude camp will bring those things to life.<\/p>\n
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Seixas\u2019 biggest enemy right now is being cooked by the expectations of home supporters and local media who are hailing him their \u201ccycling savior.\u201d After that, his biggest nemesis is getting excited and overtraining.<\/p>\n
For now, Seixas has just got to keep doing what\u2019s been working so ridiculously well for him so far.<\/p>\n
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike)<\/h2>\nVingegaard is mid-way through the Giro d\u2019Italia \u2013 his Tour de France finishline is 10 weeks away.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Tour de France stakes:<\/strong> Leveling Poga\u010dar in winning both the Giro d\u2019Italia and Tour de France in one year, and becoming only the ninth rider to have ever done so.<\/p>\n
Last race: \u00a0<\/strong>You might be watching it right now. Vingegaard is midway through the Giro d\u2019Italia, where he\u2019s in pole position for the maglia rosa.<\/p>\n
If Vingegaard takes pink in the stage 10 time trial \u2013 which is widely expected \u2013 brace for him racing boring through the final weeks. Every match he can conserve in the Italian Alps and Dolomites will be invaluable in France.<\/p>\n
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What he\u2019s doing after the Giro: <\/strong>Vingegaard will have just five weeks to turn it around between the Giro\u2019s finale in Rome and the Tour\u2019s start in Barcelona. Visma-Lease a Bike told us his plans for that period are entirely contingent on what happens in the next few weeks in Italy. The most likely scenario is a week or more of rest before an altitude camp in Tignes at the back-end of June.<\/p>\n
For comparison, Poga\u010dar sandwiched his wildly successful Giro-Tour double in 2024 with a week of rest and then 19 days up high in the French Alps.<\/p>\n
Next race: <\/strong>There is no \u201cnext race.\u201d What kind of crazy person races between chasing GC at the Giro and going for yellow at the Tour?<\/p>\n
What Vingegaard has to do after the Giro: Chase freshness over form<\/h3>\nVingegaard needs to emerge from the Giro healthy and with his matches intact.<\/span> (Photo: Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Vingegaard will enter choppy, uncharted water as he travels between Rome and Barcelona. He\u2019s never raced the early-season grand tour double, and V-LAB has never attempted it with one of its classification leaders.<\/p>\n
How well Vingegaard fares in the final week of the Giro will dictate everything that follows. It will be a very different road to the grand d\u00e9part<\/em> if he leaves Rome beat down with niggles or fatigue compared to if he floats through the Italian Alps on a blissful cloud of heart rate zone 2.<\/p>\n
Whatever the Italian outcome for Vingegaard, less will be more as he rebuilds for the Tour.<\/p>\n
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Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)<\/h2>\nEvenepoel pulled a surprise by showing up at the Tour of Flanders and then surpassed expectations by finishing third.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Tour de France stakes:<\/strong> Proving wrong the doubters who think he can\u2019t race GC. Earning his king-size contract with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Becoming the first Belgian yellow jersey in 30 years.<\/p>\n
Last race:<\/strong> A frustrated third behind Poga\u010dar and Seixas at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge in late April. \u201cBest of the rest\u201d at a race he won twice seemed like a downer finale to his rollercoaster start with Red Bull.<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s doing now:<\/strong> Evenepoel got the party started for Poga\u010dar and Seixas by being first of the three to land on Sierra Nevada on May 10.<\/p>\n
With no racing until the Tour, Evenepoel will likely be perched at thin air for quite some time. Training and Tour de France recon are all he\u2019s got on the agenda right now.<\/p>\n
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Next race? What next race? <\/strong>Like Vingegaard, there is no \u201cnext race\u201d for Remco. He scrapped his planned start at the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9 in favor of rest and recovery after he burned the candle a bit fast in winter.<\/p>\n
What Evenepoel has to do now: Smooth out the rough edges<\/h3>\nEvenepoel was left disappointed after he was gapped by Poga\u010dar and Seixas on La Redoute in Li\u00e8ge.<\/span> (Photo: Gruber Images )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Evenepoel and Red Bull traveled to Sierra Nevada with a checklist of issues to resolve.<\/p>\n
The Belgian\u2019s big start at Red Bull has been studded with both stunning success and dire disappointments. Blow-ups, temper tantrums, and strange excuses torpedoed his hopes at both the UAE Tour and Volta a Catalunya.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Evenepoel\u2019s teammate, Florian Lipowitz, quietly reinforced his status as one of the most consistent GC racers in the peloton.<\/p>\n
In past seasons, Evenepoel retreated to altitude before the Tour and parachuted back down as a rider transformed. He\u2019ll be pulling on every resource Red Bull has at its disposal to make sure it happens again this summer.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll be on superdomestique duty if it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Z8A_9427.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated May 17, 2026 01:59AM In case you missed the memo while you\u2019ve been watching Jonas Vingeagaard at the Giro: The countdown to the Tour de France has officially begun. Vingegaard, Tadej Poga\u010dar, Remco Evenepoel, and new kid on the block Paul Seixas will be on the start line in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1939845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1939845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1939845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1939845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1939845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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