Van der Poel Hunts Down Glory in Ussel on the Tour's Hottest Day

Mathieu van der Poel finally got his stage in the 2026 Tour de France, and he took it the hard way: from the breakaway, over four categorised climbs, in furnace-like heat so dangerous that organisers cut 30 kilometres off the route. With temperatures pushing past 38 degrees and a red alert over the Corrèze, the shortened day through the Massif Central was too hard for the sprinters and too easy for a GC battle — a stage tailor-made for the brave.

Four men made the day's move stick: Van der Poel, Tom Pidcock, Uno-X's Tobias Johannessen and EF's Alex Baudin. It was anything but a friendly ride. Pidcock kept attacking over the tops of the climbs, Van der Poel stretched the group on every descent, and behind them a ferocious chase led by Filippo Ganna and Mads Pedersen refused to give up. The quartet's advantage yo-yoed around a single minute for most of the finale, and the game of cat and mouse in the last kilometre nearly proved fatal — the charging bunch crossed the line just six seconds later.

But when the four survivors turned the final corner in Ussel, there was only ever going to be one winner. The most explosive rider of his generation opened his sprint, the gap appeared instantly, and Van der Poel had time to sit up and savour it: Johannessen second, Pidcock third, Baudin fourth.

The favourites, meanwhile, called an unofficial truce in the heat and rolled in together, leaving the general classification untouched: Tadej Pogačar keeps the yellow jersey with 2:42 over Jonas Vingegaard. On a day when simply reaching Ussel felt like a result, Van der Poel delivered a reminder that when the road tilts and the race turns feral, there is still nobody quite like him.