A mountain jersey thriller, Carapaz’s coup, Olympic records: Alpe d’Huez proves to be the decider

2: Carapaz doubles his lead

Richard Carapaz has won his second stage at the Tour de France. The Ecuadorian rode to victory solo in Orcières-Merlette, tackling the final climb at an average speed of 23.4 km/h.

Following his success on the 17th stage of the 2024 Tour, Carapaz is thus celebrating the second Tour victory of his career and, at the same time, Ecuador’s second ever Tour stage win. In the history of the Tour de France, he is now one of the 51 riders to have won at least two stages.

In total, the mountain specialist now has nine Grand Tour stage wins to his name: two in the Tour de France, four in the Giro d'Italia and three in the Vuelta a España.

3: The series lives on

Carapaz’s victory sees EF Education-EasyPost continue a remarkable run of success. The team has now won at least one stage in each of the last three editions of the Tour de France.

Carapaz himself got the ball rolling in Superdévoluy in 2024. Last year, Ben Healy followed suit with his victory in Vire.

Among the teams competing in the 2026 Tour, however, Soudal-Quick-Step holds the record. The Belgian team has won at least one stage in every Tour since 2013, making it 14 consecutive editions. Visma-Lease a Bike has also been successful for ten years running, whilst UAE Emirates-XRG has celebrated stage victories without interruption since 2020. Alpecin-Premier Tech has even won at least two stages every year since its Tour debut in 2021.

40: Pogacar continues to collect king of the mountains jerseys

Even though Carapaz took the stage win, it remains Tadej Pogacar leads the mountains classification. After the 18th stage, the Slovenian was wearing the King of the Mountains jersey for the 40th time in his Tour career.

Pogacar has already taken the King of the Mountains classification to Paris three times, but in the all-time statistics he still lags well behind the greatest climbers in the history of the Tour. Lucien Van Impe spent 70 days in the King of the Mountains jersey, whilst record-holder Richard Virenque spent as many as 96.

6: The mountains classification remains up for grabs

The battle for the red points is turning into a real thriller. Valentin Paret-Peintre picked up 23 points on the stage to Orcières-Merlette and is now just one point behind Pogacar.

The Frenchman has 69 points, whilst Pogacar has 70. Richard Carapaz also remains within striking distance on 63 points. With three stages to go, there are still 114 mountain points up for grabs.

History shows that late twists in this classification are not uncommon. On six previous occasions, the King of the Mountains jersey has only been decided during the final three stages. Most recently, in 2024, Carapaz snatched the lead from Pogacar right at the very end. Four years earlier, Pogacar had, for his part, snatched the jersey from the Ecuadorian in the final kilometres of the Tour.

2: Olympic gold medallist makes an impact on the Tour

The 2026 Tour is also making Olympic history. For the first time ever, both a reigning Olympic champion and a former Olympic road race champion have won a stage in the same edition of the race.

Remco Evenepoel, the 2024 Paris Olympic champion, won stages 15 and 16. Now Richard Carapaz, the 2021 Tokyo Olympic champion, has added another victory to his tally.

It is true that several Olympic champions had previously won Tour stages after claiming Olympic gold, including Samuel Sánchez, Olaf Ludwig and Hennie Kuiper. However, never before had two Olympic champions achieved this in the same edition of the Tour.

2 x 2: Schmid can do absolutely anything

Mauro Schmid has demonstrated his exceptional versatility in the run-up to Paris. The Swiss rider finished second in Orcières-Merlette, having already secured second place the previous day in Voiron.

Yet the two stages could hardly have been more different. Whilst the route to Voiron featured a profile more akin to a classic race, with 2,200 metres of climbing, the route to Orcières-Merlette involved 3,900 metres of climbing.

The fact that Schmid was beaten first by sprint star Jasper Philipsen and then by climbing specialist Richard Carapaz underlines his qualities as a true all-rounder. The Jayco-AlUla rider had already demonstrated his versatility with his victory in Belfort.

6: Carapaz is the king of the fighters

Richard Carapaz was on the attack from the first climb right through to the finish and was consequently named awarded the title of ‘most combative rider of the day’.

The Ecuadorian spent 146 kilometres in the breakaway group, maintaining an average speed of 39.9 km/h over the undulating terrain. For this performance, he has now received his sixth award for the most combative rider of his Tour career.

This means the EF Education-EasyPost rider has two more honours than his team-mate Ben Healy. Since the Grand Départ in Barcelona, Carapaz has already been honoured three times, putting him on a par with Baptiste Veistroffer.

Should he receive yet another honour, he would equal the record set by Giovanni Battaglin, who was named the most combative rider of a stage four times during the 1979 Tour.