this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
10 points (85.7% liked)
procycling
635 readers
9 users here now
for news and discussion of professional cycling
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This 6-stage race (Monday to Saturday) starts with a Time Trial, and then goes on with a collection of steep hills everyday. Even the Time Trial is not flat at all, starting with a 2.5 km climb, and finishing with a smaller but steeper one.
๐ Weather forecast: a very un-Basque weather (no rain), and the first days are going to be very hot for the season.
๐ดโโ๏ธ Teams:
We'll get to see Del Toro (๐ฒ๐ฝ UAE), Ayuso (๐ช๐ธ Lidl-Trek), Seixas (๐ซ๐ท Decathlon), Roglitch๐ธ๐ฎ and Lipowitz๐ฉ๐ช (Bora) for GC. Perhaps Landa (๐ช๐ธ Soudal-QS), McNulty (๐บ๐ธ UAE), Uijtdebroeks (๐ง๐ช Movistar) and one Ineos behind them. For stages, we can watch the 2 Basques from Cofidis who are always in shape at this time of the year when they smell home: I. Izagirre๐ช๐ธ and Aranburu๐ช๐ธ who just made 1^st^ and 4^th^ on the Indurain GP โ where Q. Simmons (๐บ๐ธ Lidl-Trek) 2^nd^ seemed to have finally found his good legs too; as well as the EF team (Healy๐ฎ๐ช and others); I am not about the shape of Astana riders at the moment.
๐บ General map (they picked the separatist version, where Spain and France do not exist, and the Basque Country includes parts in France):
Stage 1 (Monday 6, Time Trial)
Stage 2 (Tuesday 7)
Stage 3 (Wednesday 8)
Stage 4 (Thursday 9)
Stage 5 (Friday 10)
Stage 6 (Saturday 11, last day)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Stage 6 (final)
What a difficult Tour of Basque country this was! The riders had no time for a nap since the first minute...
Lipowitz (๐ฉ๐ช Bora) played with fire until the last yards. Why the heck was he hanging in last position of his group? He was lucky not to take a split, and that on the contrary, Johanessen (~~๐ฉ๐ฐ~~๐ณ๐ด Uno-X) was very unlucky to be counted a split in his own group. Anyway, it was a good idea to 'secure' his GC position yesterday!
I never understood where Riccitello (๐บ๐ธ Decathlon) was. The movement of Seixas (๐ซ๐ท Decathlon) and the location of his movement didn't make any sense if his American teammate wasn't ahead and able to drop to help him.
edit: did the whole Decathlon team (but Seixas) collapse or what? At the moment on PCS, I see 4 DNF, and the only 2 survivors, Riccitello and Staune-Mittet๐ณ๐ด, at 20 mn...
The biggest surprise for me was to discover on this last stage that Picnic was taking part in this race ๐คฃ
Congratulation to Johanessen~~๐ฉ๐ฐ~~๐ณ๐ด and Uno-X for their action today. It was obvious in each climb, that they didn't have the climbing chops others (like the comical duo Soler๐ช๐ธโHealy๐ฎ๐ช) have, yet they managed, thanks to a good pace averaging, to create gaps with behind, and reduce gaps with the front. They are rewarded by a podium, which looked unreachable in the morning. They missed the 2^nd^ place for nothing, but eh, this is already a great comeback.
Roglitch (๐ธ๐ฎ Bora) drowned under the return of the Basque weather which poured all the rain it hadn't poured in a week.
G. Martin (๐ซ๐ท FDJ) was in every breakaway those last days, but is always too weak for the finish, and I think that even with so many favourites staying behind today, he was too far to make it back into top-10?
Now I notice that I haven't mentioned August (๐บ๐ธ Ineos), the winner of this difficult stage.
That's another 20 years old! His teammate Laurance๐ซ๐ท who won 3 days ago wasn't that much older: 24 (I though he was younger than that). The only exception this week was Aranburu๐ช๐ธ who is 30 y.o.
The stage podium, as well as the GC podium, don't go over 25-26 years.
You've done it again, but in the reverse :D
Are you sure he didn't change nationality?
Hem, well, okay, okay, I'll have him sail the Skagerrak the other way round. ๐
Looking at what the actual Danes did today, I see that Cort was part of the 50 (!) withdrawals today.