Updated May 17, 2026 01:59AM
In case you missed the memo while you’ve been watching Jonas Vingeagaard at the Giro: The countdown to the Tour de France has officially begun.
Vingegaard, Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel, and new kid on the block Paul Seixas will be on the start line in Barcelona in less than seven weeks.
From now until July 4, every day matters for this “Big 4” of the 2026 Tour.
And each one of them couldn’t have chosen more different ways to spend them.
Remco’s in recovery. Seixas is in hiding (or he should be). Pogi is … being Pogi. And Vingegaard is gambling on an audacious double.
Here are the pathways, priorities, and potential potholes the yellow jersey bigs face in the next seven weeks.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates-XRG)
The Tour de France stakes: A place alongside only four others to have won the yellow jersey five times. A little more of a grip on cycling immortality.
Last race: Pogi won four stages and the overall at the Tour de Romandie earlier this month while mouth-breathing. It was ruthless, efficient, and a rare glimpse of Pogi in eco mode.
What he’s doing now: Pogačar bounded up to Sierra Nevada on Friday 15 May, and he’ll stay there for around three weeks. He’ll return to sea level ahead of Tour de Suisse in mid-June before one last altitude top-up in Isola 2000 the week before the grand départ. Because you can never have enough unoxygenated air, so to speak.
Next race: Tour de Suisse, starting June 17.
Pogačar’s top rivals in the 5-day tour will be Primož Roglič and Matteo Jorgenson. Anything less than a Pog-bliteration will be an upset.
What Pogačar has to do now: Stay safe in Suisse, strip weight
Getting through Tour de Suisse safe, healthy, and without trying too hard is priority No.1.
Suisse finishes only two weeks ahead of the grand départ. Pogačar hasn’t risked racing so close to the Tour’s big start since 2022, when he used Slovenia as his final hit-out.
Many Tour de France aspirants – including Seixas – have chosen the extra week of breathing room offered by the Dauphiné, which starts a week before Suisse.
Priority No.2? Pogačar claimed he needs to drop a few pounds after bulking up for the classics.
He will be threading a very fine needle by chasing both race weight and raw power in the next few weeks. Those two things don’t go hand-in-hand. But this is Pogačar – this guy has got more room for error than most.
Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA-CGM)
The Tour de France stakes: Becoming the youngest Tour de France winner in history and the first French champion in 41 years. Daily coverage in L’Equipe ‘til death.
Last race: Seixas set all of France into a fluster when he romped across the Basque Country, up the Mur de Huuy, and ended up second behind Pogačar at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in late April. This was the coming-out party that proved young Paul could be a Pog-slayer.
What he’s doing now: Seixas started his altitude camp in Sierra Nevada on 13 May. He’ll likely be there for around three weeks before he comes to sea level to clip into his racing shoes.
Next race: Critérium du Dauphiné (i.e. Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), June 7.
With Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel all absent, Seixas will be one of the absolute favorites. Crazy thing to say for a 19-year-old. His main rival? Pogačar’s sidekick, Isaac del Toro.
What Seixas has to do now: Stay calm
The best thing Seixas can do right now is stay calm and stay away from annoying people like us in the media.
He’s shown he’s got the watts to match Pogačar across all gradients and all scenarios. The only thing the 19-year-old is lacking is experience and a six-hour day, 21-day engine. And not even the most meticulous altitude camp will bring those things to life.
Seixas’ biggest enemy right now is being cooked by the expectations of home supporters and local media who are hailing him their “cycling savior.” After that, his biggest nemesis is getting excited and overtraining.
For now, Seixas has just got to keep doing what’s been working so ridiculously well for him so far.
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike)
The Tour de France stakes: Leveling Pogačar in winning both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in one year, and becoming only the ninth rider to have ever done so.
Last race: You might be watching it right now. Vingegaard is midway through the Giro d’Italia, where he’s in pole position for the maglia rosa.
If Vingegaard takes pink in the stage 10 time trial – which is widely expected – brace for him racing boring through the final weeks. Every match he can conserve in the Italian Alps and Dolomites will be invaluable in France.
What he’s doing after the Giro: Vingegaard will have just five weeks to turn it around between the Giro’s finale in Rome and the Tour’s start in Barcelona. Visma-Lease a Bike told us his plans for that period are entirely contingent on what happens in the next few weeks in Italy. The most likely scenario is a week or more of rest before an altitude camp in Tignes at the back-end of June.
For comparison, Pogačar sandwiched his wildly successful Giro-Tour double in 2024 with a week of rest and then 19 days up high in the French Alps.
Next race: There is no “next race.” What kind of crazy person races between chasing GC at the Giro and going for yellow at the Tour?
What Vingegaard has to do after the Giro: Chase freshness over form
Vingegaard will enter choppy, uncharted water as he travels between Rome and Barcelona. He’s never raced the early-season grand tour double, and V-LAB has never attempted it with one of its classification leaders.
How well Vingegaard fares in the final week of the Giro will dictate everything that follows. It will be a very different road to the grand départ if he leaves Rome beat down with niggles or fatigue compared to if he floats through the Italian Alps on a blissful cloud of heart rate zone 2.
Whatever the Italian outcome for Vingegaard, less will be more as he rebuilds for the Tour.
Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)
The Tour de France stakes: Proving wrong the doubters who think he can’t race GC. Earning his king-size contract with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Becoming the first Belgian yellow jersey in 30 years.
Last race: A frustrated third behind Pogačar and Seixas at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in late April. “Best of the rest” at a race he won twice seemed like a downer finale to his rollercoaster start with Red Bull.
What he’s doing now: Evenepoel got the party started for Pogačar and Seixas by being first of the three to land on Sierra Nevada on May 10.
With no racing until the Tour, Evenepoel will likely be perched at thin air for quite some time. Training and Tour de France recon are all he’s got on the agenda right now.
Next race? What next race? Like Vingegaard, there is no “next race” for Remco. He scrapped his planned start at the Critérium du Dauphiné in favor of rest and recovery after he burned the candle a bit fast in winter.
What Evenepoel has to do now: Smooth out the rough edges
Evenepoel and Red Bull traveled to Sierra Nevada with a checklist of issues to resolve.
The Belgian’s big start at Red Bull has been studded with both stunning success and dire disappointments. Blow-ups, temper tantrums, and strange excuses torpedoed his hopes at both the UAE Tour and Volta a Catalunya.
Meanwhile, Evenepoel’s teammate, Florian Lipowitz, quietly reinforced his status as one of the most consistent GC racers in the peloton.
In past seasons, Evenepoel retreated to altitude before the Tour and parachuted back down as a rider transformed. He’ll be pulling on every resource Red Bull has at its disposal to make sure it happens again this summer.
He’ll be on superdomestique duty if it doesn’t.