Vingegaard and Visma | Lease a Bike deal Pogacar first blow with victory in Tour de France team time trial

Visma Lease a Bike has won the team time trial in the 2026 Tour de France. The Tour de France kicked off shortly after 5:00 PM with a race against the clock for teams in Barcelona. The Dutch team saw Jonas Vingegaard finish fastest, with Netcompany INEOS in second place and Tadej Pogacar's UAE Emirates-XRG in third.

The Tour de France kicks off on Saturday with a 19.6-kilometer team time trial around Barcelona, the city where the Tour peloton has been staying for several days for the team presentations and media events. The team time trial features two short climbs, both in the final stretch of the race.

The Côte de Montjuïc, which will also feature in Stage 2, is 1.1 kilometers long with a 5.1 percent gradient. The final climb rises 800 meters at a 7 percent gradient. At 5:05 p.m., Caja Rural will be the first team to start, while UAE Emirates-XRG, with defending champion Tadej Pogacar, will be the last to start.

In the first half hour, it was the pro-continental teams and lesser-known WorldTour riders who were allowed to set the first times.Caja Rural was logically the first in the hot seat, with the Netherlands' Alex Molenaar as the solo finisher.Picnic PostNL was expected to be capable of threatening that. However, the Dutch formation opted for a striking tactic, riding full throttle in the opening phase up to the first intermediate point.

The fastest time of the day there would claim the first green jersey at the finish.Julius van den Berg set an intermediate time of 5.31 minutes. Because the pace had been so high, they had to wait for several riders after the intermediate point, including Warren Barguil, who was the first to be dropped.Eventually, Robbe Dhondt was launched for the final climb, but the gap to Caja Rural was still enormous at 42 seconds.

With the rule that the time of the first rider counted, it was naturally also interesting in the opening phase to see which potential leaders might still go for a top time, thereby revealing secret ambitions for the general classification.

At Tudor, we crossed Michael Storer's name off for a Tour general classification; Tudor clocked only the third provisional time and, moreover, went solo with Yannis Voisard. TotalEnergies, with finisher Jordan Jegat, went under the time of Caja Rural, which was relegated to a provisional second place.

Groupama-FDJ United and Pinarello-Q36.5, with Romain Grégoire and Tom Pidcock as finishers, went under the time of TotalEnergies. Grégoire put 15 seconds on the Brit in the process. Movistar was even faster, but had a disastrous day due to the early dropping of Cian Uijtdebroeks. Raúl Garcia Pierna finished alone, while Uijtdebroeks lost a significant amount of time.

After the first twelve teams, and with Groupama (read: Grégoire) still the fastest of those twelve at the finish line, things only really got interesting—with all due respect to the leaders. An ambitious Alpecin-Premier-Tech set off for the team time trial, just like Netcompany INEOS, one of the top favorites.

INEOS made its ambitions clear at the first intermediate point by going 5 seconds faster than Picnic PostNL, which was dreaming of the green jersey. Mathieu van der Poel, in turn, also recorded very fast times along the way with Alpecin-Premier Tech, and the Dutchman was 2 seconds faster at the finish than Grégoire and his teammates.

The hot seat was short-lived, as Netcompany INEOS made a big impression. Although Kévin Vauquelin was lost en route due to a flat tire, Alpecin-Premier Tech's time was shattered at the finish line by 31 seconds. This was accomplished by Filippo Ganna, without any potential general classification contenders accompanying him. Kévin Vauquelin suffered a puncture and had to angrily drop out; Thymen Arensman also did not finish with Ganna.

After the dust had settled on INEOS, we could get ready for the final six teams. Who could still threaten the British team with Ganna? And where would Van der Poel finish in a provisional second place? That was quickly one spot, as Paul Seixas settled into second place on behalf of Decathlon CMA CGM, 30 seconds behind the best time.

Lidl-Trek did much better, keeping pace with INEOS at intermediate points 1 and 2. However, after a flat tire for Mattias Skjelmose, the team fell 8 seconds short at the finish line. What about Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe? No. The German team was somewhat disappointing, although Remco Evenepoel rode a phenomenal final kilometer, dropping Florian Lipowitz from his wheel. The Belgian finished 10 seconds behind INEOS, good for third place behind INEOS and Lidl-Trek. Visma | Lease a Bike and UAE Emirates-XRG were the only two who could still change this. And that seemed imminent, as Visma was 6 seconds faster than INEOS and Lidl-Trek after three intermediate points. An impressive Jonas Vingegaard ultimately blasted across the finish line 7 seconds faster.

All eyes were still focused on UAE Emirates-XRG, which, after three intermediate points, was admittedly 13 seconds slower than Visma | Lease a Bike, but of course, Tadej Pogacar was riding along. He was launched by Isaac del Toro, but the damage sustained along the way could no longer be repaired.

Although 13 seconds was reduced to 11 seconds, Pogacar received a first blow from Vingegaard, who was handed the first yellow jersey. Netcompany INEOS positioned itself neatly between the two powerhouses in the peloton, thanks to Ganna. Lidl-Trek and Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe completed the top five of the day at 15 and 18 seconds.