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Key events
Netcompany Ineos could win this race, but they have lost their GC contender.
Kévin Vauquelin drops off the back of the TTT effort, gesturing with his arm for his team to carry on without stopping. A back-wheel puncture seemingly, rotten luck. Given the individual times given to each rider, he could lose minutes on day one. 2019 winner Egan Bernal is off the back too.
Meanwhile, Decathlon CMA CGM Team are on the road. Much-hyped 19-year-old Paul Seixas covers his first couple of kilometres on the Tour de France.
Alpecin - and Van der Poel - go fastest
Mathieu van der Poel crosses the line for Alpecin-Premier Tech in 22 minutes 26 seconds. The new leaders, two seconds up on Groupama.
But they will not lead for long. Netcompany Ineos are on a ride, fastest at the first two check points, 14 seconds up on Alpecin-Premier Tech at the second time check. Still all eight riders together too.
Cycling - Tour de France - Stage 1 - Barcelona to Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain - July 4, 2026 Netcompany INEOS cyclists in action during stage 1 REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Six teams left to start, including all the pre-race favourites: Decathlon with Paul Seixas in two minutes, then Lidl-Trek (Ayuso), Red Bull (Lipowitz and Evenepoel), Visma (Vingegaard) and UAE (Pogacar and Del Toro).
Netcompany Ineos are off!
Netcompany Ineos are flying around the early corners, visibly faster than teams that have come before. No room for error on some of those bends, yikes.
Their pre-race marginal gain? Good old fashioned cold water.
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Half the teams have finished, but all the best and most powerful squads are to come.
Here are the standings so far:
1. Groupama-FDJ United 22 minutes 28 seconds
2. Pinarello-Q36.5 at 15 seconds
3. TotalEnergies at 20 seconds
4. Caja Rural-RGA Seguros at 31 seconds
5. Tudor Pro Cycling at 32 seconds
Netcompany Ineos, the racers formerly known as Ineos Grenadiers, start their effort, the first of the contenders.
They are off mid-pack, but with Thymen Arensman, Filippo Ganna and Josh Tarling in the engine room, they have every chance of winning the maillot jaune. They will be have been preparing for this effort for months.
The TTT from hell for Movistar. They were fastest at the first check then had a couple of mechanical issues.
One rider pushed on for their result, seventh out of nine finishers, 37 seconds down. Spellcheck-bothering GC man Uijtdebroeks crossed the line just behind two helpers, about half a minute further down the road.
When it goes wrong, it goes very wrong.
Talk on TNT Sports from Robbie McEwen for Alpecin-Premier Tech doing stealth TTT training and having an eye on the yellow jersey for Mathieu van der Poel.
I don’t buy it. They might take the lead but will need a remarkable ride to beat Red Bull, UAE et al. They don’t have all the whole-team horsepower for it. Besides, the Dutchman has a much better chance tomorrow.
Alpecin-Premier Tech keep cool. With a little help from ice vests and slushies. Looks a little strange with the futuristic helmets.
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Tom Pidcock sprints over the line to put Pinarello-Q36.5 in provisional second, 15 seconds down on Groupama-FDJ United.
That will change. I expect them to lose a minute or so to Visma, UAE, Netcompany or so. Might give the Yorkshireman a tad more freedom to attack in the mountains, mind.
Drama for Movistar. Mechnical issues for Cian Uijtdebroeks and an apparent shoe plate problem for Javier Romo. He slams the handlebars in frustration as he drops off the back. All it takes is five seconds of not pedalling to be jettisoned in this 55km/h effort.
The last time the Tour de France started with a TTT was 1971.
Who won? Eddy Merckx’s team, of course. Cycling’s greatest wore the maillot jaune after that one.
It was not a real TTT, mind, calculated by adding up the times of the first five riders on each squad. As you can see, the powers-that-be have been tinkering with the format of the discipline for almost 60 years.
Groupama-FDJ United overtake their compatriots by a fair old whack. 22 minutes 28 seconds.
However, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet, the plucky French rider who is so good at finishing between 10th and 15th in the Tour every year, and teammate Clement Berthet crashed on course. They crossed the line with ripped skinsuits and torn skin. Nightmare.
From bad to worse for the French outfit. They already started this Tour under a dark cloud, surprisingly not selecting past leaders Valentin Madouas and David Gaudu. A teammate had told Le Parisien weeks ago that Gaudu was “an annoying enigma”. Ouch.
French team TotalEnergies have gone fastest at the finish, stopping the clock at 22 minutes 49 seconds.
Almost halfway through their effort, Pinarello-Q36.5 still have a full complement of eight riders in one long line. Treating it like a regular TTT so far.
Good to see Arnaud De Lie start the race for Lotto Intermarché, hopefully he can make the time cut and line up for the start tomorrow.
Tom Pidcock and his Pinarello-Q36.5 team are out on the road.
He acknowledged to TNT Sports re-race that today’s opener will “not be the most fun”. Indeed; he and his team are no TTT specialists and will be losing time to the big dogs of the bunch. Perhaps 45 seconds to a minute.
Britain’s do-it-all racer is here for the hills and mountains, with a shot at a top-five finish and a stage win, although he will be hard-pressed to beat the excitement of his Alpe d’Huez victory in 2022.
Not such a disaster from Picnic-PostNL, who finished 40 seconds behind Caja Rural.
I’m hearing they were going for the green jersey, awarded to the fastest rider past the 5.1km checkpoint – and fear it was not fast enough.
Smart way for one of the race’s weakest teams to try and hunt out a lot of publicity early in the race though. The Tour is not all about results, but storytelling and thinking outside the box.
Spanish squad Caja Rural-Seguros RGA cross the line and set the fastest time… albeit as the first starters.
They were already down to two men on the short, first climb before the last hill up Montjuïc.
Alex Molenaar stops the clock at 22 minutes 59 seconds, his last remaining teammate peeling off at the foot of the climb.
We are already seeing some different tactics. Team Picnic-PostNL started fast, briefly shedding a few riders in the process, including two-time stage winner and former King of the Mountains Warren Barguil, and had to slow up and wait.
I once gamely got “Wawa”, at the height of his fandom, to pose in a crown for a cycling magazine photo shoot which he did with a smile and good grace. He has not done much since that 2017 heyday.
Caja Rural get the Tour de France rolling
The 2026 Tour de France is under way.
First team Caja Rural-Seguros RGA are out on the course, carefully negotiating the glut of corners in the first few kilometres. Picnic PostNL roll down the ramp next.
Five minutes separate each squad, so no danger of catching a rival and torpedoing their morale.
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Speaking of Camp Nou, Visma-Lease a Bike are making the most of their renowned sportswear collection supplier at this grand départ.
Wonder how these lot would do in a kickabout. Vingegaard to put it top bins?
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The team time-trial route wends around Barcelona, taking in several landmarks.
The Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s Parc Guell, the Camp Nou footballl stadium, La Rambla and the Tour Glories. Who knows, maybe some punters will be tempted to visit this charming, off-the-tourist-trail place…
Emailing in, James Beardon does not think much of this new-fangled format:
“Not sure about this TTT. I’m not a fan of the ITT but TTTs are usually pretty entertaining just watching teams trying to stay together. The use of individual times just makes it an ITT, not a TTT – they just happen to go off at the same time. Seems a bit pointless to me (but it’s the Tour so of course I’m watching it!) Any thoughts or am I just being grumpy?”
Thanks James. My take: on the contrary, I think it is essentially a normal TTT aside from the last 4km. I fully expect most teams to stay together for the flat, first 15km and treat it in the manner we are accustomed to.
David Powell writes in remarking that it is hot in Barcelona, offering a charming selfie of an Englishman in the afternoon sun.
It is 30 degrees Celsius in the Catalan city, a bit like riding in an oven. One more factor to make this TTT even more unpleasant for the Tour’s riders.
One champion who is not at this year’s Tour de France? Four-time winner Chris Froome. Jeremy Whittle with the story from Barcelona:
The longest retirement saga in the sport finally ended on Friday when the 41-year-old, speaking in Barcelona at the Grand Départ of this year’s Tour, said: “Unfortunately, there was that fall last summer. That wasn’t the way I wanted it to end. But even then, I knew it was over.”
The favourites
Predictions for today? Send them, questions, wonderings and any anticipatory thoughts to [email protected].
I reckon the winning margin will be less than five seconds. Netcompany Ineos won the Paris-Nice TTT, Visma-Lease a Bike did the business at the
Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, expect those two to be up there.
My money is on Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe to shade it, with ex-Ineos sports science boffin Dan Bigham in their backroom staff and world time-trial champion Remco Evenepoel leading their effort.
Before the Tour has even started, it is possible that Lotto Intermarché will be a man down when they roll down the start ramp.
Their strongman sprinter Arnaud De Lie has been suffering with stomach problems and was pictured climbing into his team car during a pre-race tune-up.
Let us see if “the Bull of Lescheret” takes the start.
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Seixas is probably the hottest teenager property that pro cycling has ever seen.
He’s winning top-tier stage races, beating world-class rivals, attacking Tadej Pogacar, all the while sometimes absent-mindedly forgetting his cycling shoes in his hotel room.
What was I doing when I was 19 years old? Eating thirty-six Jaffa Cakes in one sitting while at university. Impressive, I would contend, but in a less athletic way. William Fotheringham has the lowdown on Decathlon’s wonder boy. If he ends 41 years of home country Tour hurt on his debut, he really is the new cycling messiah:
Who are the Tour de France favourites?
Look no further than Tadej Pogacar. He seems to find a way to improve every single year, challenging for every Monument one-day race going, a testament to his versatility, hunger and power.
Unbeaten in a stage race since the 2023 Tour de France and relatively untroubled by rivals in recent years, it would be a surprise if he failed to win. He has turned up to the Tour looking like peak Eminem, who incidentally is one of his favourite singers.
While regular rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) could probably not pull off the bleach blond look, he is full of confidence after a dominant Giro d’Italia triumph and says he is “better than ever”. Those two will likely duel again in the high mountains.
As for outsiders? Mexican super-talent Isaac Del Toro is making his debut, learning from the best – his team leader Pogacar. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) has impressed this year, and Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe have podium potential in Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz, third last year.
And then, oh la la, last but certainly not least, there is Paul Seixas…
Team time-trial start times
This is the running order for the team time-trial. Without a road stage beforehand to separate wheat from chaff and yield any time differences, it has been done in reverse order of bib numbers.
Spanish wild card team Caja Rural (dossards 211 to 218) get the race rolling at 5.05pm local time. The big hitters are on the course an hour later, with UAE Team Emirates-XRG last off at 5.55pm BST, 6.55pm local time. Note: all times below are BST.
4.05 – Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
4.10 – Picnic PostNL
4.15 – TotalEnergies
4.20 – Tudor Pro Cycling Team
4.25 – Groupama-FDJ United
4.30 – Pinarello-Q36.5
4.35 – Cofidis
4.40 – Lotto Intermarché
4.45 – Movistar
4.50 – NSN
4.55 – Uno-X Mobility
5.00 – Jayco-Alula
5.05 – Alpecin-Premier Tech
5.10 – Soudal Quick-Step
5.15 – Netcompany Ineos
5.20 – Bahrain Victorious
5.25 – XDS Astana
5.30 – Decathlon CMA CGM
5.35 – EF Education-EasyPost
5.40 – Lidl-Trek
5.45 – Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
5.50 – Visma-Lease a Bike
5.55 – UAE Team Emirates-XRG
Preamble
Anyone care for some TTT?
The 2026 Tour de France is here. It gets under way in Barcelona this afternoon with a 19.6km team time-trial around the streets of the Spanish city.
The 21 squads will be passing La Rambla on the route, but this will be no ramble. As the discipline’s last word rather suggests, this is a test, the ultimate one for cohesion, power and aerodynamics in pro road racing.
Looking like Tron players in their wind-cheating helmets and skinsuits, eight riders roll down the start ramp, taking 10-to-20 second turns on the front to keep the speed at 60 kilometres per hour before slotting back into the slipstream, centimetres away from a teammate’s back wheel. It is all about going as fast as possible with optimal smoothness, ignoring their burning legs and lungs.
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The TTT is back on the Tour route after a seven-year absence, but not as many fans might know it. Rather than the clock stopping on the fourth rider across the finish line, as is traditional, this is individually timed. Therefore, many teammates will give their all and drop off the pace along the route, leaving one or two frontmen from each team accelerating for all they are worth on the finishing incline to the Olympic Stadium on Montjuïc.
The course is flat and fast until two short hills in the final four kilometres, meaning victory will mainly come down to sheer power, with climbing finesse needed in the finale. Given the tweaked rules, woe betide any GC contender who has a puncture or a crash.
This is probably the most prized stage for any team to win – a byword for strength-in-depth and total cycling, putting one of their riders in the yellow jersey right away. More than that, it takes the pressure off from the get-go. Job done in terms of performance and subsequent media coverage: not bad for 20 minutes’ work.
We will get deeper into favourites for today’s appetiser and the Tour de France later, but surefire contenders this afternoon are Netcompany Ineos, Visma-Lease a Bike, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and last team off, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, home of defending champion Tadej Pogačar.
Please do chime in with your emails, thoughts, tangents, predictions, hopes and dreams. You can find me at [email protected] or @andymcgra..
