The likely final sprint stage of this year’s Tour de France was won by Tim Merlier, of the Soudal Quick-Step team, who added victory on the banks of the Saône to his wins in Bordeaux and Bergerac.
In what has been a Tour of rare opportunity for both sprinters and breakaways, the final hour of racing was manic in its intensity and peppered with constant but futile attacks, until the riverside finish came into view.
But the 2026 Tour’s first sprint pile-up saw several riders come down, including stage 11 winner Søren Wærenskjold and Netcompany Ineos’ sprinter, Dorian Godon.
With riders left lying across the road in his wake, Merlier emerged from the chaos and took victory comfortably from stage five winner, Olav Kooij.
Joined by his young son on the podium, Merlier has now established himself as the fastest sprinter in this year’s race, eclipsing past multiple stage winner, Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech, who seems a shadow of his former self.
As his family looked on, Merlier was jubilant. “He is still young,” he said of his son, “but maybe he will remember it, and can watch it later. It’s extra motivation to win for them. This one is a special one, because they were here today.”
Merlier said he had learned from past mistakes. “Yesterday, I was really focused on the guys who were in the move, and that was the reason I was boxed in. So today, I tried to stay in front of them.
“I found some space and I needed to calm down and then launch again.” But he added: “I knew it was the kind of finish that suits me.”
Merlier, like other riders including Pogacar, experienced communication issues during the race. “We had radio problems,” Merlier said. “My radio was broken, and I was busy because the other guys were all coming to me.”
The urgency for the sprinters in this Tour has become all the greater, with stage 12 expected to be their last opportunity for a win, and the final stage in Paris again based on a hilly circuit through Montmartre. For the rest of this Tour, they now expect to be suffering through the climbs.
They will certainly not be in the mix in Friday’s stage, which includes the first category Ballon d’Alsace – the first mountain pass to feature in the Tour in 1905 – just 30 kilometres from the finish in Belfort.
Although the 9km climb offers a platform for another Pogacar attack, the champion described the stage to Belfort as “weird”.
“I think Saturday and Sunday will be bigger days,” he said, “and tomorrow we need to survive.”
Even so, the steep climb of the Ballon is also likely to further rattle Jonas Vingegaard’s cage, as the number of his potential podium-hunting usurpers seems to be growing by the day.
after newsletter promotion
As many have noted, the fatigue of racing and winning May’s Giro d’Italia may soon catch up with the Dane. Remco Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso and Paul Seixas are all within a minute of the double Tour winner and his customary second place position to the uncatchable Pogacar is now under serious threat.
Vingegaard’s defence of his podium position is further weakened by the illness that has stricken his key teammate, Matteo Jorgenson, who has been isolated from his team and is even travelling to and from the race starts and finishes in a separate vehicle.
Of Vingegaard’s three immediate rivals, it is 19-year-old Seixas who has impressed the most. The decline that was predicted by some after the Tour’s opening weekend has not materialised and instead the debutant is just 29 seconds behind third-placed Evenepoel as the Tour nears the end of week two.
His calm racing style and maturity have impressed many of those around him.
“He’s naturally self-confident,” Seixas’s friend, Cyprien Masson told the French media. “He doesn’t get big-headed. When things aren’t going so well, he stays calm, thinks, and bounces back.”
“He keeps perspective, knows what he wants, how he works best and has a vision for his career,” his Decathlon CMA CGM teammate Aurelién Paret-Peintre added. “The first time I really got to know him, I was taken aback, because he talked like a 25-year-old.”
Over the next three days both Vingegaard’s resolve and that of his rivals will be tested to the extreme with Saturday’s stage through the Vosges to Le Markstein and Sunday’s summit finish to the Plateau de Solaison. Pogacar, however, may have designs on them both.
Leave a Reply