Jonas Vingegaard leaned into his Team Visma/Lease a Bike teammates and grabbed the yellow jersey after Stage 1 of the Tour de France on Saturday at Barcelona, Spain.
The stage marked the return of a team trial to the Tour de France, with a new format as each rider was timed individually, instead of receiving a collective team time. A team time trial was last contested in the 2019 event and was last used as the opening stage in 1971.
Denmark’s Vingegaard broke from his teammates during a pair of 1.1-kilometer climbs before the finish line and completed the 19.6-kilometer course in 21 minutes, 47 seconds. He was eight seconds faster that Italy’s Filippo Ganna of Netcompany INEOS, while two-time defending champion and Slovenian native Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates was in third, 12 seconds off the lead.
Spain’s Juan Ayuso was fourth, 16 seconds behind Vingegaard.
“I would say it’s a perfect start,” said Vingegaard, who won the Giro d’Italia stage race in May. “It’s still a long tour, but it’s a perfect start. My teammates did an amazing job today. They were so strong. I didn’t have to do too much, to be honest. They just drove me to the finish.”
Vingegaard won consecutive Tour de France titles in 2022 and 2023, but was removed from cycling’s throne by Pogacar, who won the event in 2024 and 2025. That made Pogacar a four-time champion after also winning in 2020 and 2021.
Despite his third-place finish in the opening stage, Pogacar is well within striking distance to win his record-tying fifth title. Pogacar rallied on the late uphill section of the course with the fastest time over the final 3.3 kilometers to earn the polka-dot jersey, given to the top climber.
Sunday’s Stage 2 is a hilly 168.5-kilometer course that travels through Spain from Tarragona and along the Mediterranean Sea before heading inland and finishing at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium.
The race will enter France during Stage 3 on Monday.
–Field Level Media
