Despite Kuss and Simmons's best efforts, America comes away from the 2026 Tour de France winless again

The 2026 Tour de France is over. Once again no American rider stood on the podium as a stage winner. By Sunday’s finish on the Champs-Élysées, the number of Tour de France stages without an American winner had stretched to 111. The last American stage winner? Sepp Kuss's solo victory in Andorra la Vella on stage 15 of the 2021 race.

Six Americans lined up in Barcelona across five teams: Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson at Visma | Lease a Bike, Quinn Simmons at Lidl-Trek, Sean Quinn at EF Education-EasyPost, Matthew Riccitello at Decathlon CMA CGM, and Brandon McNulty at UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Yet none of them were able to win a stage. By themselves that is. It could be argued that Sepp Kuss won the first stage, a team time trial, with his Visma teammates. But we’re not counting that.

On stage 20, he attacked solo on the road to Alpe d'Huez and briefly held twenty seconds on Richard Carapaz. Then he crashed once on a descent, got back up, and crashed again moments later as Carapaz swept past. He finished third, with Remco Evenepoel also passing him at the line.

Visma | Lease a Bike director Marc Reef called it a brutal way to lose a stage his team had built all day around. "The disappointment is huge," he said. Kuss, typically unbothered by misfortune, summed up his afternoon in three words when he reached the team bus: "Well and alive." It was as close as any American came to breaking the streak all July.

Kuss has been the drought-buster once already this season, having taken a stage win at the Giro d'Italia in May, making him the only current American riding to have won a stage in all three Grand Tours. Kuss’s crash(es) were heartbreaking for all who watched. He was all set to win the stage and end the winless run. Perhaps the pressure got the better of him?

Quinn Simmons, the reigning US Pro road champion, spent the Tour attacking from the breakaway. Mostly in service of Mads Pedersen's green jersey, including a lead-out to victory for teammate Pedersen in Foix on stage 4 and a string of attacks on stage 12. Something that would come up, as Simmons made no secret of the frustration he felt at not being able to work towards his own goals.

"They're the ones paying my salary, so I do what I'm told," Simmons said after stage 15, reflecting on a team hierarchy that prized the green jersey over a personal stage hunt. Lidl-Trek team manager Steven de Jongh didn't dispute the frustration but stood by the plan, saying he understood it and that Simmons still had "long careers ahead of them" to chase his own wins.

Simmons had come to the Tour de France in red hot form after the US National Championships win, with the express goal of winning a stage in the Stars and Stripes jersey: “"It'll be the third year I get to wear the jersey in the biggest bike race in the world”, he said before the Tour. “As an American I love to race in that jersey in Europe. I've been lucky enough to win twice in it too, which is pretty special. My biggest dream is to win a stage wearing the jersey."

That dream will now be put on hold, for another year at least. And with Lidl-Trek’s favoured son, Mads Pedersen, aiming to retire in 2029, will Simmons be forced to work for him at the Tour until then?

Part of the story is simple arithmetic. Cyclingnews noted recently that the US has fielded modest numbers at the Tour in recent years: three Americans in 2021, six in 2023, and six again in 2026. Most of that contingent arrived in support roles rather than as protected leaders. Why those riders were at the Tour also matters.

McNulty rides for Tadej Pogačar. Riccitello rode for French prospect Paul Seixas. Jorgenson and Kuss support GC leader Jonas Vingegaard. Only Sean Quinn, 15th overall by the race's second half, had anything resembling personal licence, and that owed more to a two-year recovery from a career-threatening knee injury than a team gifting him freedom. Quinn shone briefly at the beginning of the race in second place overall, thanks to some crafty breakaway work, but soon slid down the pecking order.

It is worth saying that Matteo Jorgenson was reported to be sick during the second week of the Tour de France. Alongside Kuss he was active in the third week, but couldn't make any moves stick in the latter parts of the stage. Will Visma favour him, and Kuss, at the Vuelta in September?

America has only ever had one male Tour de France winner outright: Greg LeMond, who became the first American, and first non-European, to win the race in 1986, having taken his maiden Tour stage win the year before in the closing time trial at Lac de Vassivière. Lance Armstrong's seven Tour titles were later stripped after doping convictions. Since LeMond's era, American stage wins have arrived in isolated bursts: Tyler Farrar, George Hincapie, Tejay van Garderen and, most recently, Kuss.

That history makes the current drought sting more, not less. There is talent in the peloton — Kuss's Giro stage win, Simmons's national title, McNulty's climbing ability, as evidenced in the opening weekend. But at the Tour de France specifically, the roles keep going to others. Now the 2026 Tour de France is done and dusted, teams will already be looking to 2027.

But taking the current professional homes of the top American talent into account, things don’t look like changing. Will Decathlon promote Riccatello over Seixas? Or will Visma back Kuss or Jorgenson over Vingegaard’s third Tour attempt, or even a young telnet like Piganzoli? The best bet is via Lidl-Trek, but the American-German team are likely to continue chasing GC podiums and classification jerseys, as they’re big budget requires.

And what about an American team? It is no coincidence that Armstrong won his disputed 7 Tours at the head of an all-American team. Armstrong’s right-hand-man George Hincapie is trying, and succeeding, to give birth to the next American super team, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling. While they won their first race in Europe earlier in the summer, they’ve got a long way to go before challenging the very top of the sport.

Unless a (very) big budget American team springs out of thin air, or an existing team starts handing out Americans genuine freedom to go for stage wins, 111 is a number that will keep climbing into 2027.