The Tour de France finally reaches the mountains, where Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson expect UAE to throw everything at Jonas Vingegaard.
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Everyone’s bracing for attacks from Del Toro and Pogačar over the Tourmalet. (Photo: JASPER JACOBS / BELGA MAG / Belga via AFP)
Updated July 9, 2026 07:07AM
Jonas Vingegaard and Visma-Lease a Bike are bracing for the Tour de France nightmare scenario of trying to cover attacks from Tadej Pogačar and Isaac del Toro.
The UAE Emirates-XRG’s two-headed monster could light up Thursday’s sixth stage across the heart of the Pyrénées in what might be the first look of Pogačar’s tactics for the next two weeks.
Stage 6 crams a legendary route across the Pyrénées with three iconic climbs — Aspin, Tourmalet and then the summit finish at Gavarnie — all stacked up in the back half of the stage.
After five days of baking across Spain and France, this Tour is hitting the high mountains early.
“I think it’s one of the most important stages in the Tour,” Sepp Kuss told Velo. “It can be a really dangerous stage with a long valley after, so you can gain a lot or lose a lot. We have to be on top of it tomorrow.”
Unlike most editions, the 2026 Tour reaches the Pyrénées before the opening week is even over.
The finish at the Cat. 2 Gavarnie isn’t what scares everyone. It’s the mighty hulk of the HC Tourmalet with 40km to go.
The 22-year-old Del Toro already has a stage win in his pocket and sits just 24 seconds back overall, tucked in behind Pogačar and Vingegaard, who remain dead level on time.
If Del Toro jumps, Visma and others cannot afford to let him go. And that could play perfectly into Pogačar’s hands.
Will Pogačar or Vingegaard attack or sit tight?
One of the Tour’s most iconic climbs could rip this race wide open.
A possible tactic making noise in the paddock is that UAE will send Del Toro up the road first, forcing Visma to decide whether to chase before Pogačar launches his own attack.
There’s a possibility that anyone who can carve out a gap over the top of the HC summit might have the gasoline to drive it all the way to the line at Gavarnie, especially if there are teammates up the road.
“I think it’s not so much covering all the moves, unless it’s in the valley, the last one. Hopefully we’re all there and can help out,” Kuss said.
The big question is whether UAE will jump on the Tourmalet, wait for the much easier Cat. 2 finish to Gavarnie, or simply do nothing and wait for the Alps.
Whether UAE actually pulls the trigger is another question, because everyone is still relatively fresh with just five days of racing in the peloton.
But Visma isn’t taking any chances.
“They’re both really good riders and they’re both here in great shape,” Matteo Jorgenson told Velo of Pogačar and Del Toro. “So it will be not just up to us, but to all the teams to manage it.”
Of course, Paul Seixas, Juan Ayuso, Remco Evenepoel, and all the other yellow contenders face the same problem, but Visma knows it will be first in line to answer anything UAE throws at the race.
Vingegaard dodged a bullet after a near-perfect opening week after the race jury didn’t impose time differences in Wednesday’s finish-line mayhem.
Thursday is everyone’s first real mountain test and Visma knows it cannot afford to blink.
“It’s the first mountain stage of this Tour, and it’s actually the first or the only real mountain stage in the first two-ish weeks,” Jorgenson said. “So it’ll be a real GC day and very decisive.”
Torstein Træen still holds nearly an eight-minute cushion over the GC favorites, so yellow is unlikely to change hands.
But Thursday could reveal whether Visma is racing against one UAE leader or two.
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