Pogacar, peloton face tricky stages as Tour de France route unveiled

From Montjuic in Barcelona to Montmartre in Paris, the 2026 Tour de France presents champion Tadej Pogacar and his rivals with a plethora of mountain passes and peaks, including two stages tackling the revered Alpe d'Huez.

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The 21-day race will start from Barcelona on July 4 and cover 3,333 kilometres before finishing beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on July 26 after three climbs of the cobbled Rue Lepic in Montmartre, organisers revealed at Thursday's unveiling.

It is an itinerary which offers Pogacar’s chief rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel more hope than the 2025 route did.

“It's designed to maintain the suspense until the end,” race director Christian Prudhomme said on Thursday.

The route ignores the northern part of France altogether, in complete contrast to the 2025 edition.

“If you put those two races together, you'll see we've managed to get most of France in,” said Prudhomme.