Les Angles Showdown: Pogačar Outkicks Vingegaard to Seize Yellow on the Tour's First Summit Finish

Les Angles Showdown: Pogačar Outkicks Vingegaard to Seize Yellow on the Tour’s First Summit Finish

Curated by Gary Edgington · Race Results

The 2026 Tour de France left Spain on Monday and went straight up. Stage 3 carried the race 195.9 kilometres from Granollers over the Pyrenees to the ski station at Les Angles, through nearly 4,000 metres of climbing and brutal heat — and at the top of it all, the two best stage racers of their generation sprinted shoulder to shoulder for the yellow jersey. Tadej Pogačar won the day by two seconds from Jonas Vingegaard, and with the bonus seconds that came with it, the race lead changed hands while the two rivals sit level on overall time. Three days in, the Tour is already balanced on a knife’s edge.

A furnace start and an hour of attacks

The stage began in fierce heat in Granollers and refused to settle. Repeated attacks tore at the peloton through a rugged opening hour, a crash on the first climb added to the strain, and the day’s breakaway simply would not form — the fight over its composition dragged on far longer than anyone expected. Egan Bernal was among the most aggressive riders in that phase, only for a puncture to end his interest just as the move finally gained daylight. When the dust settled, a break nearly twenty strong had gone clear, and it carried enough general-classification danger to guarantee a nervous afternoon behind.

Baudin’s long shot at yellow

The danger had a name: Alex Baudin. The EF Education–EasyPost rider had started the day just 1:07 behind Vingegaard, and once the escape’s advantage passed two minutes he became the Tour’s virtual leader — obliging Visma–Lease a Bike to keep the move on a leash rather than let the stage drift away. Around him the break went to work on its own prizes. Mads Pedersen swept maximum points at the intermediate sprint in Campdevanol to seize the virtual lead in the green-jersey competition, while Baudin himself shifted targets as the gap began to fall: maximum points over the Col de Toses, then another attack on the Col du Calvaire, cresting it first to lock up the polka-dot jersey. Nicolas Prodhomme joined him briefly before sitting up to wait for his Decathlon CMA CGM leader Paul Seixas, and Baudin pressed on alone.

UAE take control — and the race turns strange

Behind, UAE Team Emirates–XRG decided the stage was worth winning. Tim Wellens produced an enormous turn through the valley, then Nils Politt, Felix Großschartner, Brandon McNulty, Adam Yates and Isaac del Toro took up the pursuit in relay, grinding the break’s lead away kilometre by kilometre. The backdrop grew stranger as the race crossed into France: with wildfire restrictions in force, local authorities had asked fans to stay away from the roadside, and stretches of the finale unfolded in an eerie quiet no Tour mountain stage normally knows. The heat did its own damage — Romain Grégoire, Ben Healy, Ben O’Connor and Kévin Vauquelin were all in difficulty around the Col de Toses, while sprinter Arnaud De Lie, dropped early and facing a hopeless race against the time limit, climbed off and abandoned the Tour. Baudin’s brave day at the front ended with roughly 12 kilometres to go, swept up by the UAE train with his polka dots already secured.

A roundabout scare, then the Del Toro lead-out

The official final climb measured only 1.7 kilometres at 6.5 percent, but the road had been rising long before that, and the approach became a full-blooded positioning war — Lidl–Trek moving up Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose, Pinarello Q36.5 placing Tom Pidcock, Visma shepherding Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss briefly setting the tempo. Pogačar even had a moment of alarm, shuffled back several places at a roundabout after a race motorbike’s manoeuvre, but he moved back up without panic. Then came the decisive act: Del Toro, Barcelona stage winner just 24 hours earlier, hit the front inside the final kilometre and buried himself in a long, devastating lead-out that did not relent until about 300 metres to go.

Two seconds that flipped the Tour

When Pogačar launched off his young teammate’s wheel, the sprint was long, sustained and unanswerable. Vingegaard, sitting exactly where he needed to be, simply could not come around — the world champion put daylight into everyone and crossed the line two seconds clear for the 22nd Tour stage win of his career, as the reports described. Richard Carapaz led the remnants of the group home for third ahead of the impressive 19-year-old Seixas. “It’s because of Isaac today, I got some extra power in the final. He committed more than 100% in the final climb,” Pogačar said afterwards. The arithmetic at the top is now delicious: Pogačar and Vingegaard are locked on identical overall time, the lead decided by bonus seconds and countback — but it is the Slovenian in yellow.

What it sets up

The wider standings tightened rather than shattered. Remco Evenepoel sits third at 23 seconds, Del Toro fourth at 24, Ayuso fifth at 27 and Seixas sixth at 48 — six riders within a minute after three days of racing that were supposed to be preamble. UAE have now won three stages from three and showed they can dictate an entire mountain stage for their leader; Visma kept Vingegaard glued to Pogačar’s wheel but could offer him nothing extra when it mattered. If you want to understand the machinery behind days like this, our explainers cover how the Tour is won and what the jerseys mean and why riders like Wellens and Del Toro spend themselves for someone else’s victory — stage 3 was as pure a domestique masterclass as the race will offer. The Pyrenees have spoken once; the answer was two seconds.

Stage 3 — how they finished

1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) — 4:45:11
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) — +0:02
3. Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost) — same time
4. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) — same time
5. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) — +0:04

GC after stage 3: Pogačar and Vingegaard level on time (Pogačar leads on bonuses/countback); Evenepoel +0:23, Del Toro +0:24, Ayuso +0:27, Seixas +0:48. Baudin takes the polka-dot jersey; Pogačar leads the points classification; Del Toro keeps white.

CyclingFreePress