Tour de France 2026 stage 3 preview | If Vingegaard wants to lose the yellow jersey, Van der Poel will pounce

For sprinters and breakaway riders, the opening weekend of the Tour de France wasn’t much to write home about, but Stage 3 could very well turn out to be an important day for the latter group. We’re heading into some climbs, but they won’t be intense enough to interest the general classification contenders, in our opinion. So will it be a day for punchers? IDL Pro Cycling takes a look.

At 195.9 kilometers, the third stage will be a long ride, from Granollers across the French border to Les Angles. There will be four categorized climbs, starting with the Côte de Saint Feliu de Codines right from the start. The 8.2-kilometer climb at a 4.5 percent gradient could already cause trouble for riders who aren’t strong climbers.

They’ll have plenty of time to recover after the summit, since the Col de Toses doesn’t come up until more than 100 kilometers into the race. At 9.4 kilometers with a 6.6 percent average gradient, it looks manageable on paper, but it’s worth noting that the final 4 kilometers or so have an average gradient of 9 percent. So it’s a very tough climb, with the summit just under 70 kilometers from the finish line.

After a long descent, we race toward the final stretch, where the course won’t be flat for even a meter. First, we climb the Col du Calvaire, a long stretch of over 11 kilometers at just over 4 percent grade. A breakaway group or the peloton could be whittled down, because after the summit, the route goes down, up, down, and finally up again. The climb to the finish in Les Angles isn’t nearly as steep, but the final 1.7 kilometers will average 6.7 percent.

Times
Start: 12:10 p.m CET
Finish: approximately 5:08 p.m CET

After two hot days around Barcelona, we’re heading to the south of France on Monday. At the start, around noon, the temperature will already be approaching 35 degrees. It will be just as hot at the finish in Les Angles, even though the finish line is at an elevation of 1,800 meters. The east-southeast wind, at force 2, will not be a factor.

Jonas Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike won on Day 1, but UAE Emirates-XRG struck back impressively with Isaac del Toro and Tadej Pogacar finishing 1st and 2nd. We’re highlighting them in bold, but the chances that the general classification contenders will battle it out on Monday don’t seem very high. Visma | Lease a Bike, for example, will likely want to relinquish the lead, we think.

The breakaway therefore has a good chance, and with the yellow jersey potentially on the line, it could be a fierce battle. Strong climbers or punchers with staying power will be the ones to survive. Among the top ten in the general classification, we don’t immediately see any names that are likely to break away—unless it’s Romain Grégoire and Lenny Martinez riding for Groupama-FDJ United and Bahrain Victorious, respectively.

Outside the top ten, more riders will be eyeing a possible one-two finish, including Mathieu van der Poel. The Dutchman missed out on the battle for the stage win during the opening weekend, but is only 1.26 minutes behind the yellow jersey. Alex Baudin is also a rider to watch at EF Education-EasyPost, especially after he wore the yellow jersey for an extended period during the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché), Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies), Yannis Voisard (Tudor), and Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) still have a realistic chance at a stage win and the yellow jersey; after that, it becomes highly unrealistic to think that breakaway riders will succeed without at least one rider from the top 20 making it to the finish. Of course, there are plenty of names in the running for stage victories.

Uno-X Mobility has Torstein Træen and Magnus Cort for those kinds of climbing stages; EF might also go for Sean Quinn. As a Tour debutant, Caja Rural will definitely want to be in the mix, with José Felix Parra, Abel Balderstone , and Sebastian Berwick as climbers. Netcompany INEOS has several contenders, though Thymen Arensman and Egan Bernal aren’t really finishers. Tobias Foss, perhaps?

We’re also adding Mathias Vacek to the Lidl-Trek roster, since Stage 2 was just a bit too tough for him with Lidl-Trek. At Jayco AlUla, they’ve mainly been trying to lose a lot of time over the first two days, so Mauro Schmid and Luke Plapp are definitely ones to watch. Quinten Hermans is riding for Pinarello-Q36.5, and Groupama could go for Clément Braz Afonso in addition to Grégoire.

We can keep going like this, because although the big stages don’t usually tire out the riders on a rest day, attackers from other teams have already made a good impression. Sergio Higuita (Astana), Marco Frigo ( NSN), and Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto-Intermarché) should be able to do the same.

And in the unlikely event that the race is decided by a thinned-out peloton, we’ll definitely include—in addition to the general classification contenders mentioned above—the punchy and consistently strong Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull), Paul Seixas (Decathlon), and Tom Pidcock (Pinarello).

Top Favorites: Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla)
Dark horses: Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla), Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ), Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost), and Tobias Foss (Netcompany INEOS)
Long shots: Tadej Pogacar, Isaac del Toro (UAE Emirates-XRG), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike), Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5), Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché), Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies), Yannis Voisard (Tudor), Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Torstein Træen and Magnus Cort (Uno-X), Sergio Higuita (Astana), Marco Frigo (NSN), and Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto-Intermarché)