(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe past six Tour yellow jerseys may have been shared out by Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard, but this edition has been billed as one with more than a two-horse race, with super talent Paul Seixas and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe duo Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz in the conversation.<\/p>\n
Despite that, a team time trial and one road stage in Barcelona have left those two modern Grand Tour greats in the top spots overall, with all other hopefuls on time gaps \u2013 but only narrow ones.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel, while disappointed to lose the team race against the clock and to have missed out on stage 2 after opting to try and sprint into a gap in the final uphill, has been impressive in his first race since late April, proving so far that the prolonged period away from racing was his best option.<\/p>\n
The Belgian star sits 15 seconds down after two stages, well within striking distance of the two ahead of him, but stages 1 and 2 were both days that should have suited him, so being away from those two again, and having already made a tactical error, highlights the point of difference.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard are incredibly consistent, both finishing first or second in all of their Grand Tour appearances since their respective debuts, a quite ridiculous record considering the stresses and drama that follow that much three-week racing.<\/p>\n
For debutant Seixas, this has been a baptism of fire, and he would’ve felt the full brunt of the Tour on the first road stage, suffering a mechanical before the entry onto the Montju\u00efc and being forced to change bikes twice, once onto a teammate’s and then back onto his once it was fixed.<\/p>\n
A calculated chase back saw him play out the finale in the lead group, but his Decathlon CMA CGM team, too, made tactical errors, launching a lead-out through Tiesj Benoot heading towards the final sprint when Seixas wasn’t looking to do so.<\/p>\n
“There was a slight problem with my earpiece. I was trying to tell them I was lacking a little bit of energy to attack, but the sports director didn’t understand,” explained Seixas after the stage.<\/p>\n
“He thought I was at 100%, so he had Tiesj do the work, even though I wasn’t planning on attacking. In the end, my legs felt better than I expected, but I prefer to save some energy for later.”<\/p>\n
Even still, at 19, it’s quite remarkable that he is only 42 seconds away from Vingegaard’s lead and 36 seconds down on Poga\u010dar. He’s certainly in the fight, but the gap to the leading duo remains.<\/p>\n
Lidl-Trek’s Juan Ayuso can be very satisfied with his performances over the two Barcelona stages, performing well in the heat to sit only 19 seconds down heading into the first French finale to Les Angles on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
Juan Ayuso in the best young rider’s jersey before stage 2 of the Tour de France <\/span>(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAyuso hasn’t matched the punch on the climbs yet, and he will have more to answer for when the high mountains arrive, but it’s not long ago that he was the young super talent everyone was talking about \u2013 he might just finally be realising that potential at the Tour, however.<\/p>\n
The main loser over the opening two days \u2013 and that is without having lost much time at all, given how decisive and difficult the final week is, with double days to Alpe d’Huez up different sides \u2013 is Evenepoel’s planned co-leader, Florian Lipowitz.<\/p>\n
Dropped by his teammate on the opening team time trial, he failed to follow the pace set on the finale of stage 2, losing another 10 seconds at the finish. Far from race ending, but as he now sits 30 seconds down on the Belgian, Red Bull’s hierarchy is being decided on the road in favour of Evenepoel.<\/p>\n
Lipowitz, in a similar ilk to Vingegaard but even more magnified, though, is a man for the long climbs and not at all a puncheur, so he too could see a complete change in standing once those higher mountains are reached.<\/p>\n
All in all, it’s a GC picture which sets things nicely up for that first proper mountain day on stage 6 to Gavarnie-G\u00e8dre, with almost all of the would-be protagonists within a minute of the lead, but Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard still seem to be in a league of their own, with Del Toro the closest to joining them.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our unrivalled reporting of the 2026 Tour de France. From Barcelona through to Paris, our experienced team will bring you breaking news, expert insight, and in-depth coverage from every stage as the battle for the yellow jersey plays out. Plus, access the Cyclingnews app to follow the action on the go! <\/strong>Find out more.<\/strong><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After two sweltering hot days in Barcelona, the general classification of the Tour de France is taking shape, without many major early losers and a top 10 that resembles what most people would have predicted before the Grand D\u00e9part kicked off on Saturday morning, but it has given some clear indications of how the 113th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}