Tour de France 2026: stage three goes ahead without fans amid wildfire threat – live
Key events
The consensus seems to be that this is a glaring opportunity for the escapees and the big beasts of the bunch will sit back and let them fight it out. Who are the favourites then?
You’ve got to put breakaway whisperer Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) into the frame for a tough day like this, though he might prefer a little more difficulty and more residual fatigue.
I could see Mauro Schmid (Jayco Alula), Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) and almost any Netcompany Ineos rider featuring today, but depends which breakaway sticks. I look forward to those faint predictions/tips being proved totally wrong!
Here is ex-racer and Tour de France technical director Thierry Gouvenou with his briefing on the stage three:
It’s a long stage with a gradual climb for most of the way. The stage features a category-one climb, the Col de Toses [9.3km at 6.5%], which should prove quite challenging. But overall, there are no major challenges. It’s a perfect stage for the attackers. The finale will separate the riders, especially on the Col du Calvaire near Font-Romeu and the final 1.5-kilometre climb to Les Angles at a seven per cent gradient. So, this is a huge opportunity for attackers to seek out a stage win and why not even the yellow jersey.
While we wait for live TV coverage, here is Jeremy Whittle’s report from Barcelona.
It was an ominous day: both for UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s show of strength (could be a long Tour for anyone not called Jonas Vingegaard) and the news about the spectator-free third stage finale, with only essential vehicles aloud.
Preamble
It’s coming home. Not English football yet (well, TBD) and probably not French cycling this summer unless Paul Seixas really is the messiah, but the 2026 Tour de France – albeit with an unprecedented third stage representative of our times.
After its Barcelona grand départ, where the Montjuïc hill was the weekend centrepiece, cycling’s flagship race heads north and over the border into its home country for stage three between Granollers and Les Angles, totalling 195.9km.
The French portion of the route – the last 44 or so kilometres, including the third-category Col du Calvaire and third-category climb to the finish at Les Angles – will be entirely without fans. That is because of wildfires raging in the eastern Pyrenees.
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Christian Prudhomme, the Tour director, said that the decision was taken on Sunday afternoon. “We agreed, given the exceptional and frightening conditions of the fire, to limit the road to only the riders and essential organisation vehicles. We ask the public not to come to roadside or to the finish. All of this was done in agreement with the state authorities.”
A Tour stage in the mountains conducted in incongruous silence and with 40 degree-temperatures expected on the road later in the week: that’s the climate crisis world we’re living in. And some people still say sport, politics and social issues are somehow all separate…
Although there is almost 4,000 metres of climbing on the menu, stage three is a rather benign medium mountain stage rather than the full shebang Pinocchio polygraph stage profile, though UAE Team Emirates-XRG may well set a punishing pace to try and set things up for Tadej Pogacar or yesterday’s stage winner Isaac del Toro after their irresistible one-two yesterday. There is no “Pogi”-proof stage in this race, after all.
On the other hand, we could see a bunfight for the breakaway and have a stage win fought out by baroudeur-grimpeurs afforded several minutes’ leeway: Visma-Lease a Bike will not want to spend unnecessary energy defending the yellow jersey for Jonas Vingegaard.
Today’s stage starts at 11:10 BST and is expected to finish at 15:54 BST. Grab a coffee and send missives, musings and Del Toro mania to me here. I’m already wondering which Tour de France cyclist could hold his own in a World Cup-winning football team…
