Rasmussen fears Pogačar could settle the Tour de France as early as the first mountain stage

The Tour de France is approaching fast, so naturally we start to look ahead. We've known 2026 Tour de France route for a while now, and it (of course) offers the general classification riders plenty of chances to make the difference. Will Tadej Pogačar take control in the first week? Danish former rider Michael Rasmussen fears he will — and then the suspense could quickly be over.

Anyone who looks at the full route first sees an exciting opening weekend in Barcelona. We start on Saturday with the opening team time trial, and a day later there's already punchy racing in and around the Spanish coastal city. Then, on day six, the first real mountains loom, with the Col du Tourmalet among those on the menu.

A first chance for the GC riders to test the legs, you'd think. Rasmussen goes even further. "There's a real risk that the race is decided here," EkstraBladet noted from a broadcast on the Danish channel Viaplay. Before the Tourmalet, the Col d'Aspin is also on the schedule, while the finish comes on the climb to Gavarnie-Gèdre.

That final climb is fairly long at 18.7 kilometres, but with an average gradient of 3.7% it is certainly not steep. That is why Rasmussen sees Pogačar attacking on the Tourmalet itself. "If Pogačar is as good as I think, and his team is as strong as I also think, and there's an attack five kilometres from the top [of the Tourmalet], then he could reach the summit with a one-minute lead over Vingegaard."

And then the gaps could grow quickly. "That means [Vingegaard] is also a minute down at the foot of the final climb, with the rest of the riders scattered across half the Pyrenees. The time gap could then grow to two minutes before they reach the finish," the Danish former rider says, outlining a possible scenario.

And then, as everyone — Rasmussen included — knows: "It then becomes difficult to offer him [Pogačar] any real resistance."