The Green Jersey Fight: Who’s Winning It, Who’s Not, and Who Should Be

Curated by Gary Edgington · Rider News

With the yellow jersey looking increasingly like Tadej Pogačar’s private property, the liveliest contest at the 2026 Tour de France is the one for green. At the first rest day the points classification is a genuine three-way scrap — Mads Pedersen leading, Biniam Girmay and Tim Merlier in close pursuit — with a twist that makes it more compelling still: the man almost everyone tipped to win it before the race began is not among the leaders at all. Here is who is winning the fight for the maillot vert, who is not, and who really ought to be. (If you want the rules behind the numbers, our explainer on how the green jersey is won lays them out.)

The leader: Mads Pedersen

Pedersen tops the standings on 268 points, and he leads in the most instructive way possible — not by being the fastest man in the race, but by being the most complete. The Lidl–Trek rider, chasing the green jersey seriously for the first time, has scored in every way the classification allows: a stage win from the breakaway in Foix, points grabbed on the rolling days that the pure sprinters cannot contest, a steady haul at the intermediate sprints, and top finishes when it does come down to a bunch kick. That breadth is telling, because the 2026 points overhaul — which fattened the reward for winning a flat stage to 70 points — was designed to help pure sprinters, and yet it is the versatile Dane, a rider with a puncheur’s range as much as a sprinter’s speed, who sits in front. That is the essence of the green jersey: our explainer on the puncheur describes exactly the kind of all-round finisher who tends to win it.

The hammer: Tim Merlier

If Pedersen is the most complete, Merlier is the most lethal. The Soudal Quick-Step sprinter has been the fastest man in the race when the road is flat and the finish is straight, taking back-to-back bunch sprints in Bordeaux and Bergerac and, under the new scale, banking 70 points at a time for the privilege. On raw speed there is an argument that nobody in this field can beat him, and every remaining flat stage is a chance to eat into Pedersen’s lead in 70-point chunks. His problem is the flip side of his strength. Merlier scores heavily but narrowly: on the hilly days he cannot follow, and at the intermediate sprints he often cannot be bothered to contest from distance, he banks little or nothing. To win green he essentially has to win every bunch sprint from here to Paris — and get over the mountains in one piece to do it.

The defending champion: Biniam Girmay

Sitting between them on 223 points is a man who has done this before. Girmay, the 2024 green jersey winner, is the quiet danger of this contest: rarely the very fastest, but relentlessly present, backed by an NSN team built to keep him in the mix, and blessed with the temperament to pounce if the two men above him trip over each other. He has not yet produced a signature day at this Tour, but he does not need to lead in week two to win in week three. If Pedersen’s legs fade or Merlier’s narrowness catches up with him, Girmay is perfectly placed to inherit the jersey by simply continuing to do what he always does.

Who’s not — and should be: Jasper Philipsen

And then there is the story the standings do not flatter. Jasper Philipsen was, by broad consensus, the pre-race favourite for green — the most well-rounded fast man in the peloton, a proven Tour points machine, backed by the sport’s most feared lead-out. On paper he should be wearing the jersey. Instead he has become the nearly man of the first week, out-sprinted by Merlier in Bordeaux and again in Bergerac and left to collect the frustrating minor placings — second, fourth, fifth — that keep him in touch without ever letting him lead. His Alpecin–Premier Tech team keeps building the perfect finale, most strikingly with Mathieu van der Poel himself delivering the lead-out, only for the win, and the 70 points that come with it, to slip to someone else. The talent is not in question; the results are. If any rider outside the top three has the raw ability to still take this jersey to Paris, it is Philipsen — which is exactly why his first week has been such a puzzle.

The wildcards who could, but won’t

Two other names hover over the contest without truly being in it. Van der Poel, having won Stage 9 from the breakaway, has arguably the biggest engine in the race and could plausibly hoover up points across flat days, hilly finishes and intermediate sprints if green were his goal — but Alpecin have cast him as Philipsen’s lead-out man and a hunter of prestige stage wins, not as a points project, so his gifts are pointed elsewhere. Olav Kooij, who took his maiden Tour stage in Pau, has the finishing speed to matter too, but Decathlon CMA CGM’s Tour is built around Paul Seixas’s general-classification bid, leaving Kooij to freelance rather than chase the jersey outright. Both are reminders that in the green-jersey race, intent and team backing matter almost as much as ability.

How it’s won from here

The great leveller is still to come. The mountains of the second and third weeks will decide this contest as much as any sprint, because every fast man must drag himself over them inside the daily time limit simply to stay in the race — and green can be lost by climbing off the bike as easily as by being beaten to a line. From here it is a question of arithmetic and attrition: Merlier needs to keep winning the bunch sprints, Pedersen needs to keep scoring everywhere and survive the high passes, Girmay needs the leaders to falter, and Philipsen needs, at long last, to start converting. With the decisive points still on the road all the way to the final stage into Paris, this is the one jersey race that is genuinely wide open — and the one most worth watching while the yellow jersey waits for the mountains.

CyclingFreePress