World champion Tadej Pogačar seals overall Suisse win with commanding mountain display.
Tadej Pogacar wins the final stage of the Tour de Suisse (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images) (Photo: Tim De Waele)
Updated June 21, 2026 10:58AM
Tadej Pogačar made his intentions clear beforehand and then delivered, roaring to a final stage triumph at the Tour de Suisse.
The Slovenian stomper blasted clear of the GC group near the bottom of the final climb and soared skywards, gobbling up the day’s break and overhauling lone leader Lenny Martinez with less than 1km to go.
It was his final pre-Tour test and all went to plan, with the Decathlon CMA CGM team even doing much of the chasing of the break rather than his UAE Emirates-XRG team.
Bahrain-Victorious rider Martinez had 1:22 with 8.3km to go and still a minute with 6km left, but despite a very courageous showing he was snapped up with 850 meters remaining.
Pogačar immediately pushed onwards to win by seven seconds, taking what is his third stage victory in just five days.
Closest GC rival Richard Carapaz had no answer on the final climb, the EF Education-EasyPost rider trailing in two minutes back. That saw Pogačar finish a staggering 6:32 ahead of him overall, with Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) a further 21” behind in third.
US climber Matthew Riccitello climbed to fifth on the stage and rose to seventh overall.
Pogačar is aiming for a fifth Tour win and got the confirmation he was seeking that he is on track.
“It was a super hard day. The parcours was really tough,” he said. “The team did a super job. It was getting harder and harder every lap that we do and in the end it was an all-out effort. Decathlon was trying to do a big pace in the last climb so I just tried to continue and to keep with this pace to the top.
“It was a brutal day and also super-hot. I am happy to take the win and the GC and that I can go home now to Urška.”
A brutal day for a bike race
Tadej Pogačar, Richard Carapaz and Mathias Vacek were the top three in GC at the Tour de Suisse (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
The final stage of the Tour de Suisse was one of the toughest on this year’s racing calendar, with 4451 altitude meters over 150.1km.
Starting and finishing in Villars-sur-Ollon, it saw 11 riders go clear on the first ascent of the Col de la Croix. Those present included US climber Andrew August (Netcompany Ineos), Lenny Martinez (Bahrain-Victorious), Paul Double (Jayco AlUla), Bart Lemmen (Visma-Lease a Bike), Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team), Finn-Fisher Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and others.
They had 1’50 the next time over the Col de la Croix and while this inched upwards to two minutes, hard chasing by UAE Emirates-XRG stopped it growing much more than this. August was dropped just inside 60km to go, with an increase in pace in the break seeing the lead go up to two and a half minutes with 53.3km to go.
Martinez led over the summit of the climb, pointing skywards in memory of former Bahrain-Victorious rider Gino Mader, who died in a crash at the Tour de Suisse three years ago.
Decathlon CMA CGM was doing much of the chasing to try to set up Riccitello. That saw the break’s lead kept to 1:55 with 30km to go and 1’45 just before the start of the final climb.
An attack by Lemmen was answered by Martinez and Quintana. The break had 1.22 with 8.3km to go and Pogačar attacked, blowing all but Carapaz away. The EF Education-EasyPost rider initially limited his gains while out front Martinez also decided it was time to shine and leaped clear.
That saw Martinez increase his lead over Pogačar to slightly over a minute. He held it there for a couple of kilometers but his pursuer was relentless and caught him with 850 meters to go.
