Tour de France 2026: Route, Favourites and How to Watch the 4 July Grand Départ
The 2026 Tour de France — the 113th edition — rolls out on 4 July with a team time trial in Barcelona and finishes on the Champs-Élysées on 26 July. Across 21 stages and 3,333 km it climbs a brutal 54,450 m, headlined by back-to-back Alpe d’Huez finishes, and the overall fight is once again Tadej Pogačar versus Jonas Vingegaard. Here’s the route at a glance, the key stages, the favourites, and how to watch.
Tour de France 2026 at a glance
| Dates | 4–26 July 2026 (21 stages, 2 rest days) |
| Grand Départ | Barcelona, Spain — team time trial (~19.7 km) |
| Finish | Paris, Champs-Élysées (with the Montmartre cobbles) |
| Distance | 3,333 km · 54,450 m of climbing |
| Summit finishes | 5, including Alpe d’Huez on back-to-back days |
| Time trials | One individual TT (~26 km, Stage 16) |
Barcelona’s opener is the first team time trial to start the Tour since 1971, and only the third Grand Départ ever held in Spain.
What are the key stages?
This is a mountainous edition — eight mountain stages and only about 26 km of time trial. The ones to circle:
- Stage 6 (9 Jul): the first big test in the Pyrenees, over the Col du Tourmalet to a summit finish at Gavarnie-Gèdre.
- Stage 15 (19 Jul): Plateau de Solaison, a brand-new and brutally steep summit finish (~9%).
- Stage 16 (21 Jul): the only individual time trial, around 26 km along Lake Geneva from Évian-les-Bains to Thonon-les-Bains.
- Stage 19 (24 Jul): Alpe d’Huez and its famous 21 hairpins.
- Stage 20 (25 Jul) — the queen stage: the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, Col du Galibier (2,642 m) and Col de Sarenne before a second Alpe d’Huez finish. It’s the first time in Grand Tour history a race finishes atop the same mountain on consecutive days.
One notable absence: Mont Ventoux isn’t in the 2026 men’s route this year.
Who are the favourites?
It’s framed, again, as Pogačar’s to lose:
- Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) — the defending champion and four-time winner, a heavy odds-on favourite chasing a record-equalling fifth title.
- Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) — the clear number two, arriving as the 2026 Giro d’Italia champion and the one rider who has consistently pushed Pogačar to his limit.
- Behind them sits the deepest chasing group in years: Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe), France’s emerging Paul Seixas, and Pogačar’s own teammate Isaac del Toro.
| Rider | Team | Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Tadej Pogačar | UAE Team Emirates-XRG | ~2/7 (favourite) |
| Jonas Vingegaard | Visma | Lease a Bike | ~4/1 |
| Paul Seixas | Decathlon-AG2R | ~7/1 |
| Florian Lipowitz | Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe | ~14/1 |
| Remco Evenepoel | Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe | ~16/1 |
Injuries and illness have thinned the field — Wout van Aert, Mikel Landa and Marc Soler are among the notable absentees. Britain’s Tom Pidcock makes his Tour debut, and American climber Sepp Kuss returns to support Vingegaard. (Odds are bookmakers’ figures from late June and will move before the start.)
The jerseys and the green-jersey shake-up
Four jerseys are up for grabs: yellow (overall/GC), green (points, for sprinters), polka-dot (King of the Mountains) and white (best rider aged 25 or under). For 2026 the green-jersey points were tweaked again to favour pure sprinters — a flat-stage win now scores 70 points — partly to stop Pogačar from sweeping the points classification too. The fastest men to watch include Jonathan Milan and Jasper Philipsen.
How to watch the Tour de France 2026
- UK: TNT Sports (TV) and HBO Max (streaming).
- US: NBC and Peacock (streaming).
The race runs daily from 4 to 26 July, with two rest days along the way.
If you’re following the rest of the summer’s sport, we’ve also broken down the 2026 World Cup’s third-place qualification maths and ranked the contenders at the Travelers Championship.