Info with one day to go
June 6 th 2026 - 18:57
The 154 participants of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes begin their journey tomorrow, which will conclude on Sunday 14 June at the Plateau de Solaison, with a 146.2-kilometre stage through the Isère department between Vizille and Saint-Ismier. The course is set to already provide a showdown between the contenders for the general classification.
The favourites expected to challenge for the title at the weekend are almost all contenders for the white jersey, starting with the youngest rider entered in the race, Paul Seixas, who is enthusiastically embarking on the final phase of his preparation for his first Tour de France. He will be up against Isaac Del Toro, Juan Ayuso, Kévin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley, as well as Cian Uijtdebroeks, Valentin Paret-Peintre and Georg Steinhauser.
Amidst this atmosphere of a generational shift heralded by the young guard, the sole former winner, Dani Martinez, will attempt to hold his own, as will Matteo Jorgenson, Tobias Johannessen and Luke Plapp.
GILLES MAIGNAN: “WE DEVIATE FROM THE TRADITIONAL FORMAT”
Habits are also there to be shaken up! Whilst stage 1 has usually been a contest between sprinters and puncheurs, the main contenders for the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes are called into action as early as Sunday. The 146.2-km opening stage links Vizille and Saint-Ismier, two cities whose icons naturally incited a demanding course design. “Starting from the town of the late Thierry Claveyrolat, winner of the polka-dot jersey in the 1990 Tour, and heading to the home of Bernard Thévenet, winner of the 1975 and 1977 Tours, we simply couldn’t design a route for sprinters!”, race director Gilles Maignan says. “So we deviate from the traditional format to include climbs from start to finish.”
The mountainous profile smiles to the climbers, with 3,160 metres of elevation gain. Early on, attackers will tackle ascent of nearly 9 km to reach the Col de l’Arzelier after 40 km of racing. “I imagine it’s on this climb that a breakaway will form, but the teams of the main favourites won’t give them much leeway; they’ll be in control”, Maignan describes. “Because on the Côte de Rousset, a category-1 climb, they’ll inevitably be sizing each other up, and even battling it out, as we’ll be about twenty kilometres from the finish. There will still be a long descent and a slight uphill stretch to reach the finish. In theory, the gaps shouldn’t be huge, but when I see the feats Paul Seixas has been capable of since the start of the year, I reckon he might still surprise us.”
SEIXAS SETS SIGHT ON HIGH MOUNTAINS TO SHOW HIS PROGRESS
At 19 years old, Paul Seixas is already a sophomore in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, an event he discovered last year with an impressive place of 8th. In 2026, the expectations surrounding the Decathlon CMA CGM have exploded, as the young French star is now touted as the main favourite to win the overall standings. Seixas doesn’t shy away from his rising status, but he’s looking beyond results. “I wouldn’t say my sole focus is on the victory”, he explained on Saturday. “To me, the most important is to see how much I improved when it comes to recovering from one stage to the next. My first participation, last year, was obviously special. It was a very beautiful and very hard race, riding hard every day. I can’t wait to see how much things have changed in a year. The goal is not to finish completely smashed like it was the case last year! But it’s not easy with such a hard race.”
After he ruled hills in the spring, most notably winning La Flèche Wallonne and Itzulia Basque Country, and also coming 2nd in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Frenchman is looking forward to reaching the high summits of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: “So far this season, we’ve mostly done short explosive effort. Personally, it’s the high mountains that always attracted me, so I’m happy to be here. It’s a beautiful event on roads where I usually train and where I’ll be able to assess the work I’ve done.”
POGACAR'S LIEUTENANTS GEAR FOR “A BEAUTIFUL SUMMER IN FRANCE”
To defend Tadej Pogacar’s victory last year, UAE Emirates-XRG line up a star-studded squad featuring the Slovenian’s most prominent lieutenants. After missing the Giro d’Italia due to illness, Joao Almeida will use the eight-day challenge to see where he stands for the summer. Isaac Del Toro also returns to competition after dropping out of Itzulia Basque Country, but the Mexican wonderkid, winner of the UAE Tour and Tirreno Adriatico at the beginning of the year, has much more certainty as he gears up for his Tour de France debut: “It’s my first time at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and I hope it will be the start of a beautiful summer of racing in France for me. Training has been going well, and things are going in the right direction. The level of racing will be high, no doubt, as a lot of the peloton are preparing for the Tour, but I think we are ready.”
Almeida and Del Toro eye the mountainous challenges on the horizon but the Mexican could also make the most of his punchy abilities on day 1… Unless Saint-Ismier smiles to a very in-form Benoît Cosnefroy? The French all-rounder claimed four victories in May, most recently winning the Boucles de la Mayenne.
JORGENSON “WOULD LOVE TO WIN A STAGE AND PODIUM GC”
While Jonas Vingegaard recovers from the Giro and gears up for the Tour de France, Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson embody Visma-Lease a Bike’s ambitions for the next eight days. The Belgian star makes his return to road racing a couple of months after claiming Paris-Roubaix Hauts de France. In the meantime, he’s won a round of the UCI Gravel World Series. The Belgian all-rounder is used to success in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, with five stage wins in his three previous participations. As for Jorgenson, he was 2nd overall in 2024 and he aims to match this strong performance in his return to competition after breaking a collarbone in the Amstel Gold Race. “I’m looking to confirm that I have a good shape”, the American says. “There’s a little bit of unknown, I’ve never broken a bone in my career, but I feel confident in the last three weeks of training and I’m happy to be here, in France, at a race I really like. I would love to win a stage and I would love to podium in GC.”
Alongside powerhouses such as Bruno Armirail and Edoardo Affini, Visma-Lease a Bike also want to make the most of the team time trial on day 3 (Perreux > Perreux, 28.4 km). “It’s crucial”, Jorgenson emphasises. “It’s very important for the GC in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and it’s so close to the Tour de France with the same format and many of the same riders so it will be a really good practise.”
VAUQUELIN AND ONLEY, DRAWING ON COLLECTIVE STRENGTH
Whilst the British team formerly known as Sky clearly dominated the Critérium du Dauphiné in the 2010s and early 2020s, with seven victories secured by Bradley Wiggins (2011–12), Chris Froome (2013-15-16), Geraint Thomas (2018) and Richie Porte (2021), the team’s success has been far less prolific since then. But 2026 could be a year of revival with a particularly promising Netcompany Ineos squad at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Sports director Ian Stannard is naturally counting on Oscar Onley and Kévin Vauquelin: “They are both in good condition and we’re looking for a good and consistent Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It’s a very hard edition for which the riders have prepared doing everything they had to before coming here. We have a strong team, with each their own strength, and we’ll use that across the race.”
Among the decisive stages of the week, Stannard is particularly counting on the team time trial, with a line-up almost identical to the one that triumphed during Paris-Nice, notably including Joshua Tarling and Dorian Godon: “This discipline is a big focus for the team. We’ve worked hard on it and we’re excited to competing in it here as well as in the Tour.”
JOHANNESSEN "DREAMS OF DOING EVEN BETTER"
As he came 5th last year in the overall standings, Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) achieved his best result to date in a World Tour race. And the Norwegian climber didn’t stop there, finishing 6th in the Tour de France the next month before taking 4th in Tirreno Adriatico and 3rd in Itzulia Basque Country this spring.
“I always dream of doing better and that’s also what I envision for this summer”, Johannessen says ahead of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes 2026. “We had a good week here last year and it’s one of my favourite races. It’s always good to race in France and it’s the biggest preparation race for the Tour. So I dream of doing even better, but I also felt good last year, so if I can recreate that feeling and take that with me into the Tour, that’s perfect. And of course a stage win would be huge.”
“A lot can happen in cycling but the feeling I have now is really positive and I think the team atmosphere is the best it’s ever been”, Johannessen adds. “So there’s nothing holding us back. Of course, it’s easy to say before the racing starts, but that’s what we’re here to do, and we want to do it even better.”
YOUNGSTERS TAKE CENTER STAGE
The start list features a handful of favourites, most of whom are also in contention for the white jersey awarded to the best young rider. There has been only one occasion in the 21st century when the Critérium du Dauphiné was won by a rider under the age of 25: in 2020, Colombia’s Dani Martinez turned the race upside down in the final mountain challenges. He is also the only previous winner in this year’s peloton. In 2025, the final top 10 comprised four riders eligible for the white jersey (Lipowitz 3rd, Evenepoel 4th, Seixas 8th and Rodriguez 9th).
This year’s start list makes it highly likely that the top places will feature even more young riders. Of the 22 teams present, seven are pinning their hopes of shining in the general classification on riders from this category, including UAE Emirates-XRG with Del Toro, Lidl-Trek with Ayuso, Netcompany Ineos with Vauquelin, Onley and Rodriguez, and Decathlon CMA CGM with Seixas. Movistar stand out as the Spanish team fields six young riders out of seven, led by Cian Uijtdebroeks.
