Tour 2026 stage 4: Pedersen wins in Foix as Træen steals yellow
A 39-man breakaway was gifted more than twelve minutes, Mads Pedersen finished it off in Foix and Torstein Træen is the surprise new yellow jersey. The results and standings after stage 4 of the 2026 Tour de France.
But first: Les Angles
In case you missed Monday's first mountain stage: Tadej Pogačar did exactly what everyone expected. On the final climb to Les Angles he got a perfect lead-out from Isaac del Toro, jumped with 1.7 kilometres to go and held off Jonas Vingegaard by two seconds. Richard Carapaz took third. One striking detail: thanks to the bonus seconds, Pogačar and Vingegaard were dead level on GC — the world champion wore yellow purely on countback.
The stage was overshadowed by wildfire warnings in the region; organisers even asked fans to stay away from the final forty kilometres of the route. It turned out to be a taste of the heat that would batter the peloton again on Tuesday.
39 riders up the road, and nobody blinked
Stage 4, 181.9 kilometres from Carcassonne to Foix, was pencilled in as a breakaway day in every preview. But nobody predicted it would play out like this. Inside the first half hour a group rolled clear and simply kept growing, until 39 riders sat up the road. UAE looked at Visma, Visma looked at UAE, and in the scorching heat both teams decided it wasn't their problem. The gap swelled beyond twelve minutes and never came back.
Afterwards there was some grumbling about the GC teams' passivity, but the logic was simple: none of the 39 escapees sat within three minutes on GC, it was brutally hot, and the Tourmalet is waiting on Thursday. Why burn your team for a stage you weren't going to win anyway?
A Lidl-Trek masterclass
In the finale Lidl-Trek showed why you want three riders in a break that size. On the Col de Montségur (6.9 km at 6.1%), thirty kilometres from the line, EF lit things up for Sean Quinn and the front group melted down to about a dozen. Mads Pedersen briefly hit trouble on the climb, but Mathias Vacek and Quinn Simmons patiently paced their leader back and then shut down every move on the run-in to Foix.
The sprint that followed was a formality. Pedersen opened up and nobody got anywhere near him; Simmons completed the team's day with second place, ahead of Raúl García Pierna. "This is a masterpiece in teamwork," Pedersen said of his teammates afterwards. "They were just machines from that point to the finish line." The Dane took the green jersey with the win, and Vacek gets to pull on white as a bonus.
Træen in yellow, Pogačar nearly eight minutes down
The real news wasn't on the results sheet, though — it was in the standings. Torstein Træen, who had slipped into the break, is the new wearer of the yellow jersey, the first in Uno-X's history. The Norwegian leads Sean Quinn by 28 seconds and Vacek by 3'50". Then comes the chasm: Pogačar and Vingegaard sit together at 7'53", Remco Evenepoel at 8'16", Del Toro at 8'17" and Juan Ayuso at 8'20".
Pogačar didn't seem particularly bothered. "It's a big gap," he admitted, adding it could be a while before he wears yellow again. Between the favourites themselves nothing changes: Pogačar and Vingegaard are still on exactly the same time. But the Tour has gained a storyline — how long can Træen hang on?
Today: the sprinters, at last
On Wednesday the fast men finally get their first real chance. Stage 5 takes the peloton from Lannemezan to Pau, over roads that offer barely any resistance. Jasper Philipsen, Tim Merlier, Jonathan Milan and Biniam Girmay have been waiting weeks for this — though Pedersen, in his brand-new green jersey, will no doubt fancy a piece of it too.
Thursday is when it gets properly interesting. The Tour crosses the Col d'Aspin and the mythical Tourmalet to Gavarnie-Gèdre, and we'll find out whether UAE and Visma let Træen keep his eight minutes or open the chase. Tuesday looked like a transition stage. It may turn out to be the day that gave this Tour its plot.
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