Isaac del Toro rides solo to the Plateau de Solaison. Third overall in the morning, he overtook Luke Tuckwell and Matteo Jorgenson to take the stage and the race overall, all with a comfortable margin.
Hurrah for the breakaways. Alex Baudin won Stage 1. Having gone clear in a breakaway, the move looked likely to be reeled in only for Baudin to strike out and profit from a stand-off among the GC contenders but no fluke, he held off the field. A big win for EF that is the second lowest-ranked World Tour team. The third lowest is Groupama-FDJ and Clément Braz Afonso was in the move too and if caught, he started to collect points for the mountains competition which he’d win, some cheer for his team.
Anthon Charmig won Stage 2 and the strongest rider in a lively final hour as the breakaway riders kept attacking each other. It was close for Henri-François Haquin in second place, for a team that’s only had one win this second place probably counts (NB he is listed everywhere as Henri-François Renard-Haquin but his real name is Henri-François Haquin).
Stage 3 was the team time trial and further proof the “Paris-Nice” rules format works as a televisual spectacle. Seeing Stefan Bissegger and Wout van Aert dropped prematurely was live drama rather than the team adjusting its speed in order to allow them to sit on the back. Visma-LAB won the stage and we can probably say Netcompany-Ineos lost it thanks to two unshipped chains and when Oscar Onley dropped his they all waited costing them the nine seconds that saw them finish second. UAE were ninth at one minute but with hindsight this was alright defensively given the poor form of João Almeida and this was not their Tour team minus Pogačar. EF did well to keep Baudin in yellow.
There was more breakaway action on Stage 4 with Quinn Simmons winning the stage. Most interestingly this was not the “early breakaway stays away” surprie – see Frederik Dvernes’s Giro stage win in Milan for a recent example – instead it was a tussle between the break and the bunch with a group of strong riders going clear knowing there were few sprint teams in the race and the battle went all the way to the final kilometre.
With Stage 5 finishing in a bunch sprint and a win for Wout van Aert you wonder if one or two teams missed a trick in not bringing their sprinter and a couple of workhorse riders as while this was a mountain race, having a shot at two World Tour sprints was an opportunity, especially for teams who knew they had little chance in the mountains. Seventh on the day helped Nadav Raisberg of NSN win 10 points on his way to taking the points competition at the end.
Stage 6 saw a 60-rider breakaway get away early. We didn’t get to see this as the TV coverage was typically for the final 90 minutes of each day. In the past the race clashed with the Roland-Garros tennis meaning FranceTV had few resources and schedule availability for the Dauphiné; this time there was no overlap with the tennis but the French state broadcaster is being asked to make big savings and many of the cuts are falling on its sports output so while we’d all want more, the worry is we might have less next year and if you watch Eurosport, Flo or whatever note this includes you as they rely on the host broadcaster. We did get to see Maxim Van Gils taking his second ever World Tour win, fully recovered from his tangle with Tom Pidcock in February’s Clásica Jaén to out-sprint Tobias Halland Johannessen. Behind Paul Seixas started to make up for lost time and only Isaac del Toro could match him but on the short climb to Crest-Volland the time gaps were small. Third on the day was Luke Tuckwell who took yellow to add to the cheer for Red Bull.
If Seixas was on the up, he was down the next day with a crash early on Stage 7 that saw him slide along the ground. It took him almost four minutes to get going but he’d chase and despite other teams paying him the compliment of riding to keep him clear he made it back, but with the injuries and effort he blew on the final climb. Juan Ayuso launched a move on the steep early slopes of the Grand Colombier only for the panache to turn to ache as he paid for the move and was overtaken by Del Toro.
The final day saw a strong breakaway of climbers but they were overhauled on the final climb. Del Toro struck out solo and finished a minute clear to take the stage and the overall win.
The Verdict
Regularly a highlight of the year, this vintage is unlikely to be a top pick, it was enjoyable for the breakaways but the overall race didn’t offer surprise.
This was an emphatic win for Del Toro, his biggest triumph so far. He might have lost the Giro a year ago but he now has an Alpine stage win to his name and he did this patiently and methodically, making moves that always delivered and overcoming his team’s weak time trial.
Extrapolating from the week to the Tour de France is often a fraught exercise. It works best or is just easier when taking incontrovertible evidence rather than a flash moment, for example last year’s podium here was also the Tour podium in Paris. So Del Toro’s consistency across the three mountain stages will be reassuring for him and depressing for rivals at the Tour de France as he could accompany Tadej Pogačar far, not just on a summit finish but to the podium in Paris.
Plenty leave the race with work to do but there’s only three weeks to fix things, very little. Remco Evenepoel showed it can be done, visibly losing a lot of weight in short space of time between the 2024 Dauphiné and the Tour.
Still Juan Ayuso was good but not sparking, but still ahead of Mattias Skjelmose who was more conservative but had less to show for it. Tobias Halland Johannessen was very good for Uno-X but he was fifth last year before finishing sixth in the Tour, would Uno-X sign today for this again? Matteo Jorgenson was good but when riding high on GC it always looked like the high mountains would be a challenge, does he settle for being a contender in week-long stage races and then folding in behind Vingegaard in grand tours? Cian Uitdebroeks was solid for Movistar but unspectacular.
All these riders fared better than those that left it earlier. Seixas crashed out, his injuries on Stage 7 saw him leave on Stage 8, if he only had abrasions it means rather than cruising for the next few days he’ll be swapping bandages and sleeping badly but he can take something positive from the race with his climbing to Crest-Volland.
With hindsight Netcompany-Ineos waiting for Onley in the time trial proved wrong as they missed out on the stage win and the yellow jersey. Of course they weren’t to know at the time. But they had a rough time in a race which they’ve used as a platform before the Tour de France, wins by the likes of Wiggins, Froome and Thomas here set them up for July. Only Onley crashed out, as did Josh Tarling and his start in the Tour is uncertain especially as he’s needed most on the first day for the team time trial, while Vauquelin underwhelmed and Carlos Rodriguez was the second best Rodriguez in the race to Christian of XDS-Astana.
Was Luke Tuckwell the revelation of the race? No, because he was the revelation of the Tour de Romandie, especially by out-climbing rivals to finish sixth overall. Going in the breakaway and holding out for third place this time is encouraging he then lost two minutes a day which shows the gap to close. Either way we’ll see more of him and he helped make this the youngest ever podium at the race.
Next up the diminished Tour de Suisse. With no overlap few riders from last week go to Switzerland. But it helps teams logistics as before they had to send separate crews of support staff and a fleet of vehicles to each race, this time many teams left France last night for Italy where the Swiss tour opens on Wednesday.
Agree not the best Dauphine of recent times, by the end it was more of a demolition derby and the stories were more about those who left the race not those who were still riding. Isaac del Toro looked a class act, the rest not so much.
As to what this means for July. UAE, as so often, dont look a great team but does that really matter, outstanding individual rides win the day. Visma suffered, along with many other teams, from loosing riders, as ever looked organised, probably favourite for the opening TTT but will WvA be in top form and will Matteo Jorgenson make the team (assume so). Is there room for any of these Red Bull riders in the tour team, Maxim von Gils looked good, Luke Tuckwell continues an upward journey other than that pretty anonymous. Netcompany had more bad luck, difficult to know quite where Oscar Onley is form wise, Kevin Vauquelin does not look a rider for the big mountain climbs, Geraint Thomas possibly needs some lessons in being diplomatic when talking to the media, noticeable the podcast has gone quiet.
Not sure all the hype is doing Paul Seixas any favours, he almost seems to be playing a role that he hasnt really earned yet. I thought the decision to ride the final day was wrong, he was clearly hurt from the crash, there was little to gain from riding on, far better to have taken time out to try to recover. How quickly he will fully heal must be an open question. I suspect any suggestion of skipping the Tour in favour of the Vuelta will not be entertained but could well be the best decision for the longer term. His team were really good post crash but other than that not convinced by the tactics.
As ever thanks for the effort of producing the blog
Yes, , it’s a concern for anyone of his age to be ‘bearing the hopes of the nation’! Going to the biggest stage race in the world as the team leader when you have never even competed in a three week race is a big ask; just because TP seems able to break all precedents doesn’t mean that it should be assumed that they are no longer valid.
He seems like a nice guy, very honest in his assessment of his crash. His team and more importantly his ‘public’ need to take care of him, not outface him.
He’s the one who wants to ride the Tour, he’s not being pushed into it for a quick publicity burst. But it’s a regular thing for all riders to be told “the Tour is so much bigger than every race” and for them to hear this again and again, then get to the Tour and find their jaw drops because the race really is so much bigger. This will be compounded by a home GC contender.
However mature he is, allowing him to decide is surely good on a human level, but I’m not as sure that it’s a great DS decision. Anyway, with such an athlete, he’s going to decide by himself all the same or he’d just leave the team; at least, if he still hasn’t another key skill… trusting others.
[Oversimplification alert onward]
“Being mature” has got, among many others, two different elements: one is how you don’t break down facing smaller or bigger internal and external challenges; the other one is how you go on after you’ve got really really broken down. Sometimes people who mature soon from the first POV have simply less occasions to practise the latter, and practise is important, although the resources which build up and support you in both cases are the same.
One thing for Seixas and it’s probably not applicable now as he appears to have lost a bit of skin only, is what he does when faced with a big setback, after years of everything going well how do you cope? You can see past examples like Evenepoel and his career trajectory going up and up only to then turn into a jagged series of highs and lows.
I found some of his behaviour a bit jarring during the week. I am sure I would have been the same at 19 years old but you learn that earning the respect of your peers is an important thing. That respect comes through hard work and achievements. I know he has won a couple of races this year but not sure that really makes you into the “team leader”
What examples of this jarred JC? He seems mature in his interviews, he’s quick to praise his team and they seem to turn themselves inside out for him too.
A nice comparison by InnerRing talking about Evenepoel. Remco, my impression anyway, has never really come to terms with no longer winning a lot of races quite easily (like in his first few professional races). And really emotionally struggles with Pogacar being better. This isn’t helped by his many supporters, and a lot of the hype that still surrounds him.
Perhaps its just the getting old thing but for me there was a disconnect between seeing a 19 year old lying in a ditch covered in blood and that same 19 year old fronting the media hype. He is no doubt a mature young man with a serious talent but, at times, the lack of experience is apparent. There are not inconsiderable risks here, Oscar Onley could have been very seriously injured (or worse) and not sure trying to live up to the hype is a good thing for anyone
@JC
“Not sure all the hype is doing Paul Seixas any favours, he almost seems to be playing a role that he hasn’t really earned yet.”
That is very well put. The media hype and the enormous pressure it brings risks being his undoing as he develops.
Vauquelin never has been a GT rider and never will be. He’s miles off (not quite literally!) the best climbers when it comes to high mountains.
Vauquelin is similar to Geraint Thomas in many ways, the track rider who goes to the road so remember that today in case he breaks out tomorrow. His 10-20 minute power numbers are among the best. But one big difference is Thomas was schooled on the track and seemed to be adept at taking orders and following instructions and training plans while Vauquelin’s not had much of this structure until now. So we’ll see more in 2027-2028 but he’s done better in other races this year than here.
Very nice first picture. Is it from le Grand-Colombier or le Plateau de Solaison ?
As many french people, the race lost his main interest when Seixas fell, but Del Toro is a fair winner. I still find it hard to forgive him the Maglia Rosa’s treason of last year’s Giro, but I hope to overcome it soon : after all, he seems to be a nice guy. Is Van Gils more a climber than a puncheur ?
Solaison, picture by Gaëtan Flamme.
I could watch Del Toro’s position on the bike and pedalling style for hours. There’s still a bit of upper body movement, we’ll see if he goes the Pogačar route of the gym to eliminate all of this.
I’d normally put Van Gils firmly in the puncheur category but he’s been climbing very well last week.
Maybe he was inspired by the memories of one of his breakthrough performances at the very top level of the sport, which was a TDF stage climbing the Grand Colombier from Culoz three or four years ago.
Jokes apart, he was very soon very close to the very best in the sport – close but not right there. Then he suffered a series of stebacks. Curious to see how he evolves if he can build on a couple of solid seasons. His specialties look now very crowded but he could be an excellent support rider in stage races with licence to strike from a break, and a perfect second sword in the Classics, able to escort or launch a captain but also dangerous if sent on the front in any anticipation or alternating move, the team could rely on him for a winning chance and it would be no bluff. Alas, all this belongs to an age when tactics meant something!
There’s still a fair bit of upper body movement – I particularly noticed it on the final stage – but agree about his riding style.
This has been a bizarre week?
Very hard to connect with the racing for some reason – it can’t just be the name change?
(although it does make me laugh how angry some fans get when you suggest changing anything with the sport whereas those running it will happily change names willy-nilly!)
It’s an odd era for these kinds of races though, so hoping we’ll get back to exciting Dauphine’s in the coming years.
“Willy-nilly” as in “whether you like it or not” because the payers want at least naming rights, just check the legendary Azteca now Banorte Stadium (popular reaction “call it as you like, it will be Azteca forever all the same”).
If you hinted at the change having happened in a careless manner, you may have noticed that it took at least ten years to change the name when the old one didn’t make any sense anymore since long (need I link the recent inrng post?).
Branding is curiously significant for human beings!
Imagine huge transnational companies suing a small local business over extremely doubtful naming rights etc.
(As cycling fans we all know the infamous Roubaix-Specialized case, but I’ve recently seen it happening in a different sector to my local diner).
The Dauphiné usually provides 1 great edition out of every 6 or so, I guess we’re done for a while with the 2025 one 😉
The Dauphine Libre was named after the region. Although the race goes quite far out of the anywhere we would call “the Dauphine”, I am less convinced than you that the name “makes no sense”.
Rather than thinking much by myself about that ^___^ for once I just borrowed our host’s opinion, as they look to know in detail even the worst neighbourhoods of Grenoble!
However, the race was really named *after the newspaper*, wasn’t it? Once ASO changed that by contract (why promoting someone else’ product?), the name of the region was a fossile footprint of something else, not an original reference to the region as such. As for my personal taste, I’d even have left Liberé there!
The full thinking is in https://inrng.com/2026/06/criterium-dauphine-name-change/
I’m not too fixed on it, if people want to call it the Dauphiné it’ll live on affectionately like some say still say Omloop Het Volk or Henninger Turm. But the organisers have a duty to rename it. If the race barely happens in the Dauphiné then the name should have been changed long ago.
Plenty of races go outside their home region after which the race is named. Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Nice and Paris-Tours don’t start in Paris. The last is a good example of a race that did change its name for a while, before returning to the original name. I can understand that opinions differ, but I personally disagree than it needed to drop the name “Dauphine”.
Dropping the name “Dauphine Libre” as Gabriele says, makes sense since this was the name of a newspaper. Het Volk is also a name of a newspaper, so it is understandable why the name changed. But the Dauphine is a (well-known) pre-revolution era region: every schoolboy/girl should know who the Dauphin was. It is not obvious to me that “it is beyond time for the name to be changed”.
PS. The red-and-white polka dot jersey is for a product which does not sponsor the jersey anymore. Do people also believe “it is beyond time for the jersey to be changed” given we have long since lost the original sponsor? Or does the design in some way transcend the original reason it was chosen?
NB: the polka dot jersey was red originally because Tour boss Félix Lévitan remembered the 1930s track cyclists Henri Lemoine and Marcel Guimbretière racing together in a red and white polka dot jersey inspired from the silk shirts worn by jockeys. The red did match the branding of Poulain, the chocolate maker that first sponsored the jersey, but only just, the company used red, white and blue and the red was a different tone too, but it stuck and doesn’t change, eg if a company used green or yellow the dots stay red.
It’s beyond time to go back to the old green jersey!
I see a difference between keeping a name like Milano-Sanremo even if you start from Abbiategrasso and a race named after a newspaper referring to a region it barely visits.
For example, the Giro del Trentino became Tour of the Alps when it started to be more and more Österreich and Tirol.
Even “la Sarthe *and* Pays de la Loire” changed names as regional and funding focus shifted a bit.
It’s normal not to race a whole region or even to sporadically exit from it but normally when the name mirrors a regional area, the race is raced there.
There are lots of races with regional/provincial names and they tend to respect the reference, I can’t come up with many examples of the contrary.
We all know, but some of us – including and especially your truly – don´t quite remember:
“In December 2013, Specialized Bicycle Components sparked a massive cycling community backlash by sending a cease-and-desist letter to Café Roubaix, a small independent bike shop in Alberta, Canada, over its use of the name “Roubaix”.
Specialized claimed it held the sole Canadian trademark rights to the term “Roubaix” for bicycles and components—a name that originated from the famous Paris-Roubaix cobblestone race. They demanded the small shop rebrand or face legal action.
In the end Specialized founder Mike Sinyard intervened and issued a personal apology to the shop owner, completely resolving the trademark dispute.
The case highlights the complex nature of trademark law, aggressive brand protection, and the rapid impact of public opinion on a major brand.”
And TM was not the property of specialised but a taiwan based specialized main shareholder, Merida.
Purely from memory, may have completely misremebered.
A top effort by Van Gils on that final climb … not only catching Jorgenson with Tuckwell in tow but also keeping Ayuso close enough.
The contest suffered as a result of the Sexias crash … in a race marred by mishaps.
Picnic Post is currently the lowest ranked World Tour team. To EF’s credit, they scored a decent amount of points given the injuries to their top point scorers last year – Carapaz – no giro, Powless – 2 races thus far, and then Healy missing the Ardennes.
That said, select sponsors face an AI issue, across the whole spectrum. Too bad they can’t create deceptive narratives to fund cycling.
Fixed for the rankings label, we’ll look at the state of the teams and points later today.
I think this race confirms that, at best, Jorgensen is a one-week race GC contender and a high-quality domestique for GTs (and that is an unbelievably high standard to reach still). It just seems like that’s his ceiling, although I guess there is a slim chance that his training has been geared more to the domestique role.
Go back and before Vingegaard decided to ride the Giro, the team plan was Jorgenson would go for GC there. The course did suit so we’ll never know, could he have made the podium ahead of Hindley? He might have raced similar to Arensman by taking gains in the TT and then limiting his losses better in the mountains to Hindley and so securing third place. Not a bad place to be.
It seems to me that Jorgenson was just born too late. His size means that he’s at a major disadvantage on the long, steep climbs that are the defining feature of every GT in this era. He definitely could have won the 2022 Vuelta in his best shape, but how many races are going to have that same profile going forward?
Tell Indurain!
Another comparison. Reportedly, Tom Dumoulin is only about 2 inches (5 cm) shorter than Matteo, and both are about same weight ~150 lbs (68 kg).
Both diesels, not explosive.
No highlight of the year? Apart from the stage for Wout I enjoyed them all. Stages 6, 7 and 8 were great with hitters in the break and GC moves, the Seixas chase.
If Tuckwell not the revelation, how about Bisiaux?
For me it just didn’t have the Talansky taking the jersey off Contador, Froome mugging Porte, Pinot losing it on the last day to Martinez kind of finish at the weekend that has made it an instant hit. But a lot of the days were good, agreed.
Good point for Bisiaux, two years older than Seixas but highly rated. He got a win in the Vuelta a Burgos last year against some big names. Hope he gets some space to race for himself and if not his agent is the same as Pogačar so he’ll be off.