Jay Vine had already won the elite men's time trial title earlier in the week. In the road race he missed the key break, then spent himself driving the peloton's chase that reanimated the race before fading out of contention — unrewarded work that nonetheless shaped the finale.

UAE arrived without Pogačar, with Vine as designated GC card, and won the way they always do — climbing stages, controlled defence, a minute-plus margin by week's end.

A near-total domination of the climbing days. Jan Christen turned a disastrous Stage 1 (two crashes, 11 seconds lost) into the overall win, attacking alone on the final climb of Stage 5 to take both the stage and the maglia, plus the white youth jersey. Igor Arrieta backed him faultlessly as the team's second card, finishing third overall and third on the decisive stage to complete a UAE 1-3 with Higuita sandwiched between them, while Kevin Vermaerke rounded out a deep climbing roster that controlled the summit finishes. UAE also won the teams classification — the complete result to open the desert season.

UAE backed João Almeida as their GC leader and he delivered the only real resistance to Evenepoel, taking second overall and second on the queen stage. Brandon McNulty's fifth gave the team two riders in the GC top five, but with no stage win it was a solid rather than spectacular early-season block for the squad.

Adam Yates was the strongest individual on the final climb but rode himself into a trap, dragging two Jayco riders clear with no UAE teammate for company. Second place and an early-season podium were a useful pointer to his climbing form ahead of the Tour of Oman GC, but the finale exposed how a lone leader gets picked off by a team that arrives at the line with the numbers. Rui Oliveira's seventh added a second UAE rider to the top ten.

Without Pogačar, UAE split the week between a sprint and a GC objective. Sebastián Molano delivered the opening-stage bunch sprint at the Bimmah Sink Hole (and was third again on Stage 4), while Adam Yates carried the GC card. Yates lit the decisive Green Mountain acceleration that broke the race open, and although Scaroni countered to win, the move secured Yates third overall — a solid early-season GC marker.

A model UAE one-day performance and the team's second win of the day after Marc Soler's overall at the Vuelta a Murcia. Brandon McNulty was the engine — splitting the race twice and then burying himself to protect the lead group — while Felix Großschartner gave the squad another card up the road (8th). Leader António Morgado finished it off, countering Aranburu on the final ramp and winning the two-up sprint for back-to-back Figueira titles. Win number 10 of the season for UAE.

UAE's home tour is always a leadership question — Pogačar usually skips it, the team's secondary GC card takes the protected role. In 2026 that card was Del Toro, who delivered on stage 1.

João Almeida led UAE aggressively on home Portuguese roads, splitting the GC group on the first Malhão ascent and driving the pace on the final climb, but he could not crack Ayuso, Onley or Seixas and finished third overall. A combative, podium ride that fell just short of the win.

Jan Christen led the team's effort and delivered, taking second on the decisive final stage, fourth overall and the best-young-rider classification. At 21 the Swiss confirmed his rise as one of UAE's most promising stage-race talents.

Pogačar attacks, Del Toro holds long enough to ride the chase and salvage third. The UAE pattern for 2026 — leader and a young protected co-card — got its first Monument-level expression. Del Toro's third place is a result Pogačar himself would have called a podium had it been his own three years ago.

Ayuso's Stage 4 crash ended UAE's GC platform week. Pogačar was riding Tirreno simultaneously, leaving Ayuso the protected card; the early abandonment cancelled the race for the team.

Del Toro's gravel ride into second on Stage 2 elevated him into the overall lead. Same template as UAE Tour two weeks earlier: protected card delivers on the right terrain.

UAE put two riders in the top ten — Juan Sebastián Molano onto the podium in third and the young António Morgado tenth — a tidy day's racing for a squad using the Flemish week to build legs. The podium without the win is a fair reflection of a sprint where Philipsen had the edge.

Tactically the only race UAE could win was a selective one — sprinters off, climbers thinned, two or three men into the Poggio. They got it, plus a crash they had to absorb at 32 km to go. Almeida, McNulty and Vine paced their leader back without panic; Pogačar then over-spent on the Cipressa exactly the way the plan demanded. The first cobbled Sanremo. The one that's been getting away.

UAE's plan for the Ronde was minimal because Pogačar was the plan. Almeida, McNulty, Vine, Narváez and Adam Yates ran tempo control through the first half of the bergs; once the favourites' group resolved into the final 50 km, the team's job was positioning, not pace-making. Pogačar made the rest of it simple by attacking earlier than anyone expected on the Kwaremont. Defending Ronde champion makes it back-to-back.

Two storylines: Großschartner third at +27 and the second man ever to beat Roglič in an Itzulia TT, plus Ayuso — defending overall champion now at Lidl-Trek — losing 1:16 on day 1. The UAE-Lidl flip between the two front-row Spaniards is the week's quieter narrative.

UAE rode the only plan that could have worked: detonate the race long before the velodrome. Pogačar's domestiques drove the Briastre tempo, then committed to position him front-wheel into every star sector. The plan was foiled by mechanical fate, not by team selection — three punctures and three bike changes, including a long solo chase before Arenberg. Politt finished ninth, the only other UAE rider near the finale. Pogačar to Wielerflits: 'I did everything to drop Wout. On Carrefour I felt he still didn't crack. In the sprint he was simply stronger. I have no excuses.' One Monument remains on his career list.

Without Jan Christen on the start sheet, Benoît Cosnefroy carried UAE's puncheur card and was active in the decisive late move before taking third in the sprint. Another front-of-race ride from Cosnefroy across the spring Classics, even if the win again slipped away in the final metres.

Pogačar skipped Amstel to recover for Flèche and Liège. Cosnefroy carried the team's Ardennes card and took third — the kind of result that justifies UAE's depth.

Pogačar deliberately skipped Flèche in 2026 to peak for Liège (which he duly won). UAE's protected card on the Mur became Benoît Cosnefroy — the team's most consistent Ardennes second-tier presence over the past three seasons. Fourth on the line, same time as Tulett, on a day the team treated as a recovery operation between the Liège and Roubaix-period bigger bets. With Del Toro also out injured from the Itzulia crash, Cosnefroy was carrying the entire spring's Ardennes weight for UAE.

UAE's Ardennes plan is one of the simplest in cycling: protect Pogačar to the Redoute, set him up to attack at exactly the right ramp, watch him ride alone to Liège. Adam Yates and Almeida did the pacework on the central Stockeu-Wanne sequence; the closing 40 km were Pogačar's to time. Three from five Monuments this calendar year (Sanremo, Flanders, Liège), with Roubaix lost to Van Aert and Lombardia still to come.

UAE's plan was conservative: keep Pogačar in GC range without burning the legs on a 3.2 km technical TT before climbing stages. Mission completed at +7. Oliveira's second on stage gave the team an early secondary podium card.

UAE's Giro was upended on Stage 2, when a rain-soaked descent crash put Vine, Soler, Adam Yates and Baroncini out in a single afternoon. From that wreckage Jhonatan Narváez salvaged a remarkable campaign — three stage wins (Cosenza, Fermo, Chiavari) — turning a decimated roster into the race's busiest stage-hunting outfit, with youngster Jan Christen prominent in the breakaways.

UAE Team Emirates rode a textbook control race for their finish-line specialist. With the Côte de Cadoudal suiting Cosnefroy perfectly, the team set a hard, even pace on the final ascents to discourage long-range attacks and keep their leader sheltered near the front, then trusted his kick on the uphill sprint. Cosnefroy delivered with a perfectly timed effort for his fourth career win at the Grand Prix du Morbihan — a prestige one-day result for the French squad on home roads.

Coming off Benoît Cosnefroy's win at the GP du Morbihan the day before, UAE kept the puncheur in the front selection at Tro-Bro Léon, where he finished sixth in the reduced-group sprint. Another front-of-race ride across the Breton block, even if the back-to-back double slipped away on the gravel.

UAE had the race's most aggressive opening week through Benoît Cosnefroy, who won the long Stage 2 to Paks and held the overall lead for two days before the queen stage. He couldn't follow Söderqvist's climb on the wet Pécs circuit and slipped to second overall at +0:40, while Juan Sebastián Molano added sprint placings (2nd on Stage 1, 3rd on Stage 3). A strong, controlling week that fell just short of the win when the road tilted up.

A near-flawless week. Johansen's prologue win banked the first yellow jersey and the early initiative, and when the race blew apart on the Stage 2 climbs UAE simply rotated their card to the puncheur best suited to the finish: Cosnefroy won the queen stage, took the lead, and held 7 seconds to Laval for the overall. Molano's fifth on Stage 1 gave them a sprint presence too. From two leaders they got an ITT win and the GC.

UAE's race looked compromised after the stage-3 TTT (del Toro +1:16) and again after the stage-6 split (+3:22, tenth overall). But the team backed del Toro to ride himself back into it on the two summit finishes — and he delivered emphatically, winning stages 7 and 8 to take the overall by 54 seconds plus the young rider jersey. A statement Dauphiné-window result and ideal Tour de France preparation.

Total dominance through four stages. Tadej Pogačar made his Tour de Suisse debut a statement, soloing to the stage 1 win and the leader's jersey from 71 kilometres out, then winning the stage 4 time trial as well — three stage wins in four days. With the GC locked early, the team could even race for stages from the break, and Jhonatan Narváez delivered the rain-soaked stage 3 in Bad Ragaz. A near-perfect opening four days.

Brennan started the season at home — well, his adopted-pro home — and led the young rider classification after a Stage 1 second. The thread runs all the way through to his Arenberg lead-out for Van Aert at Roubaix in April.

Brennan, billed as Visma's emerging Classics leader, took second on home Aussie soil — a clean early-season validation that ran through to his Arenberg lead-out for Van Aert at Roubaix.

Christophe Laporte gave Visma the perfect start, winning the reduced bunch sprint on stage 1 to claim the opening leader's jersey, and he stayed prominent in the sprints all week (third on stage 3). A clean early-season block for the Frenchman.

Matteo Jorgenson was the aggressor who made the race: his attack on the Mur d'Allex created the winning two-man move and forced everyone else to chase. He couldn't quite finish it off, leading out the uphill sprint only for Grégoire to come off his wheel in the final metres. An active, front-of-race ride that just missed the win.

Visma rode for the sprint and executed it perfectly. With the climbs surviving into a reduced bunch, Christophe Laporte — a former winner of these Opening Weekend races himself — turned super-domestique and delivered a textbook lead-out for 20-year-old Matthew Brennan, who finished it off convincingly. It is the headline early-season confirmation of Visma's youngest Classics talent, and a marker for the spring after a quiet Opening Weekend day one.

Visma rode two leaders in Jorgenson (the day's actual finisher) and Van Aert (returning to gravel after a long absence). Neither could match Pogačar's Monte Sante Marie selection. Jorgenson 8th, Van Aert 10th — clean top-10 ride, no Monument bid.

Paris-Nice was Visma's first major statement of the year — Vingegaard back in GC form, the team riding around him with the structure that made the 2022-23 Tours look easy. Jorgenson supporting, Brennan stage hunting from the bunch, Van Aert preparing for the cobbled spring on different roads.

Visma's Per Strand Hagenes was the most aggressive rider on the day — forcing the early selection, lighting the decisive split on Maing-Quérénaing, then trying to drop Segaert on the final sector. Having animated the entire finale he ran out of road, caught by the peloton before the line and out of the top ten. Axel Zingle salvaged fifth from the chasing sprint, but the team left the win on the table after riding the race apart. A fortnight after Hagenes's solo second at E3, another long-range Visma effort that came up just short.

Visma rode reactive on the Cipressa and paid the price — they could not place a rider in the selection and ended up depending on chase cohesion behind. Van Aert had the legs but not the position, and won the bunch sprint for third from the second group on the road. Jorgenson was the day's most visible Visma support; Brennan in the bunch.

Without Van Aert on the start sheet, the team handed leadership to Per Strand Hagenes. Second place at E3, on his own, three seconds back, is the kind of result the team will quote in succession-plan discussions for years. Brennan, the other young Classics prospect, missed this one.

Van Aert was in the three-man late move with Van der Poel and Segaert, taking the same kind of long-shot that won him Roubaix two weeks later. Caught with metres to go; Laporte then sprinted to third from the catch, his second podium of the spring.

Van Aert's long-range attack at Dwars was a near-perfect dress rehearsal for what he'd do at Roubaix eleven days later. Same instinct: don't wait for the sprint, force the move. Same outcome: caught at the line. Eleven days later the move stuck.

Visma's Flanders plan has always assumed Van Aert can survive into the front group on the Kwaremont. He did, then could not match the acceleration that ended the race. Jorgenson and Strand Hagenes kept him in position; Brennan was the day's most visible support. Van Aert's fourth-place sprint from the bunch was the maximum return from his position. The team's bigger Monument bet, two weeks later, would land Roubaix.

Single-leader Roubaix, ridden as a team plan rather than a free-for-all. Brennan lead-out into Arenberg; Per Strand Hagenes burned on the long mid-race pulls neutralising counter-attacks; Laporte sacrificed before Carrefour to keep the gap open, then survived to fifth. DS Grischa Niermann told Wielerflits: 'We didn't ride anyone as plan B today. It was all about Wout. Everybody knew they had to empty themselves for him.' Van Aert dedicated the victory to Michael Goolaerts, the Belgian who died on the pavé in 2018.

Ben Tulett — Visma's 22-year-old British climber, ridden to fifth on Itzulia Stage 2 a fortnight earlier — took on Flèche as the team's protected card and rode the wheel beautifully until the gradient eased. Schmid's surge cost him second; the final podium step was still the season's biggest result and a clean validation of Visma's bet on him for the Ardennes block. Jorgenson was the senior support on the day.

A near-flawless Grand Tour. Visma came with Vingegaard as the overwhelming favourite and delivered exactly that — patient while Eulálio's break held pink, then methodically dismantling the GC with summit wins at Blockhaus, Corno alle Scale, Pila (where pink changed hands), Carì and Piancavallo, plus Sepp Kuss's queen-stage win. With Wout van Aert lending early support, the team controlled the race front to back and rode their leader to his first maglia rosa.

Without a podium card for the Cadoudal finish, Visma | Lease a Bike still placed Axel Zingle in the front group of around 30 that contested the uphill sprint. The French classics rider took sixth on the same time as Cosnefroy — a respectable result on a finish that didn't suit a designated leader, but well short of the win on a day controlled by UAE and Decathlon.

A statement first day back for Wout van Aert, who chose the Marly Grav gravel race as his comeback after winning Paris-Roubaix. He raced it on the front from early on and settled it with a long-range solo attack inside the final 22 km, soloing into Valkenburg for a win he said he simply turned up to enjoy. A reminder of the off-road range that makes Van Aert one of the sport's true all-rounders.

A textbook numbers game delivered Visma its first ever Tro-Bro Léon. The team loaded the decisive front selection with Per Strand Hagenes and Axel Zingle, who attacked and forced rivals to chase, keeping the finale open and uncontrolled. That left winter signing Filippo Fiorelli sheltered and perfectly placed to launch the winning move with about 3 km to go and ride solo into Lannilis. With Hagenes also taking tenth and Zingle seventh, three Visma riders finished in the top ten — a complete team performance on a day the team was also racking up wins elsewhere.

Visma raced aggressively without a headline finish. Louis Barré was among the Stage 2 late movers and ended seventh overall, and Matthew Brennan was a fixture in the sprints, but the team left Mayenne without a stage or a jersey.

Visma won the stage-3 team time trial and Wout van Aert's stage-5 sprint, and took the team classification. Matteo Jorgenson rode the TTT foundation into a consistent GC week, sitting on the podium fringe before fading to fourth on the final climb. A productive Tour warm-up across multiple objectives.

Visma-Lease a Bike were the most active team in the decisive phase. Wilco Kelderman spent a long spell off the front in the day's key move, and once it was caught Louis Barré drove the pace on the Mont-de-l'Enclus climbs to shed the sprinters. The work thinned the group but never created a gap for a teammate, and the race came back to a reduced sprint they couldn't win — aggression without a finisher.

Visma produce the strongest TTT performance of the day, leading at two of the three time checks and delivering their captain to the Montjuïc climb with full gas. Vingegaard's individual attack caps a near-perfect team effort and puts Visma in yellow from day one.

An emphatic opening to the year for Red Bull: Evenepoel delivered the overall via the time trial and the queen stage, while Giulio Pellizzari rode to third overall and the youth classification as both protected card and key mountain support. With Vlasov second on the Stage 2 ITT and Arne Marit on the Stage 1 sprint podium, the team showed depth across every terrain of the week.

Jordi Meeus was twice the bridesmaid, finishing second to Magnier on both sprint stages, while Florian Lipowitz (8th overall) animated the final stage with his counter-attack and Daniel Martínez took seventh on GC. A productive but win-less week for the squad.

Aleksandr Vlasov was Red Bull's GC card and rode into the front group on the final climb to finish seventh overall at +0:54. A solid if unspectacular early-season test without ever threatening the podium.

Dani Martínez held on for second in his first Red Bull-Bora Paris-Nice. 4:23 down with Vingegaard in this form is not a tactical critique.

Red Bull animated the climb, with Roglič repeatedly forcing the selection on Superga and Adrien Boichis attacking to give the team a tactical card. Roglič's accelerations shaped the race but could not shake Pidcock, and he had to settle for third; Pellizzari backed him up in fourth, a strong collective ride that lacked the final kick.

Jordi Meeus got himself into the right place for the uphill drag and was beaten only by Philipsen's top end. Second in a 1.Pro sprint is solid positioning and condition work, but on the day the pure speed belonged to Alpecin.

Evenepoel rode his first Tour of Flanders as Red Bull-Bora's Classics leader and went off the front of the chase group on the run-in to take third clear of Van Aert and Pedersen. A debut podium in the Ronde; the message that the move from Soudal hasn't blunted the one-day form. He told the post-race Flemish press: 'A podium in my first Ronde is something I can be satisfied with, but there is still work to do to win this race.'

Roglič held the on-course benchmark through both intermediate checks before being passed by Großschartner and Seixas in the final times. Fourth at +28 — within GC contention for the week, but not the day's headline.

After the Ronde podium and the Liège third still to come, Amstel was Evenepoel's first major win in Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe kit. The 42-km solo is signature.

A complete week. Pellizzari, 22 and on home South Tyrolean roads, took the leader's jersey on Stage 2 at Val Martello and defended it through a chaotic mountain week before extending it to a decisive 40 seconds with a final-stage solo on Montoppio — his maiden GC victory and an ideal Giro d'Italia springboard. The team controlled the race front-to-back, lost domestique Lorenzo Finn (sixth overall) to the Stage 3 crash, and still walked away with the GC, youth and team classifications, with Aleksandr Vlasov sixth overall as a secondary card.

Red Bull-Bora chose the long-range tactic — Evenepoel in the early break, leading 140 km, removing the team's chase obligation for two-thirds of the race. The downside arrived when Cosnefroy dropped him before Pogačar's attack, leaving him 1:42 back. Third place in his first Liège in Red Bull kit; the team's Ardennes block ends here, the GC programme starts next.

With its biggest names elsewhere, Red Bull rode an opportunist's Giro and took the final podium step: Jai Hindley climbed to third on the Stage 19 queen stage, edging Arensman in the Dolomites and holding it to Rome. The revelation was 22-year-old Giulio Pellizzari, repeatedly in the front group on the high mountains — a marker laid down for the team's GC future.

Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe were among the most active in the chase, placing two riders in the top four: sprinter Jordi Meeus third and 19-year-old Alessio Magagnotti fourth, both at +4 seconds. The pace they helped set could not bring back Shmidt's solo, leaving Meeus to settle for third in the bunch kick. A solid block of riders without the result - the kind of near-miss that the squad's deep classics roster will want to convert next time.

A near-perfect week. Laurence Pithie took the pink jersey with an uphill-sprint win on Stage 1 and never gave it back, adding second on the Arenberg cobbles and a gritty, largely solo defence on the Cassel summit to win the overall plus the points and young-rider jerseys. The team backed him with relentless control work — Callum Thornley's lead-out and pacing earned repeated praise from the sports director, and Thornley even handed Pithie his bike after a late Stage 5 mechanical. Jordi Meeus then bookended the race with a dominant final-stage bunch sprint, lead out by Danny van Poppel for a team 1-2. Two stages, the GC and three classifications: the complete result.

Red Bull were the busiest team of the week, winning two stages from two different riders. Jordi Meeus opened with the stage 1 win and first leader's jersey, then turned lead-out man on stage 3 — combining with Danny van Poppel to deliver Laurence Pithie through a crash-split finale for a second stage win. Pithie also took the young-rider classification. But with the GC settled on bonus seconds at the line, the squad couldn't convert its firepower into the overall.

A complicated day rescued by depth and discipline. When the climbs around Geraardsbergen split the field and Meeus missed the front group, the win looked gone — but after the peloton came back together Red Bull seized control, with Laurence Pithie and Danny van Poppel driving the chase over the cobbles to reel in the break. They protected Meeus through a late crash and delivered a textbook lead-out that the Belgian finished off for the win.

Luke Tuckwell exploited the stage-6 split brilliantly to seize the yellow jersey and defended it doggedly across two mountain stages before del Toro's final-climb attack proved too much. Second overall at +0:54 is a breakthrough week for the Australian, even if the team will rue letting the jersey slip on the very last climb.

Danny van Poppel launched the sprint, opening it up only for Philipsen to come past. Van Poppel held on for fifth — the lead-out man left as the bridesmaid when the timing went against him.

A total domination en route to the Tour de France. The deepest squad in the race won stage 1 (Pithie) and stage 3 (Pithie) in the sprints, then turned the queen stage into a tactical masterclass: chasing down the break, using leader Pithie as a workhorse, and launching Lipowitz and Pellizzari clear on Vršič for a one-two finish. By stage 4 they held the top two on GC plus the points lead, with Lipowitz ending his 2026 win drought at the ideal moment. A near-flawless team performance.

Red Bull-Bora set the third-best team time before Visma arrive, showing strong collective TTT work around Evenepoel and Lipowitz. Both GC leaders finish within 19–35 seconds of Vingegaard — a recoverable deficit in the context of 21 stages.

Twenty-year-old time-trial specialist Oscar Chamberlain was alert to Plapp's winning move, made the four-rider chase that caught Durbridge, and took the bunch sprint behind the leading pair for third — a strong national-championships ride for a young rider.

Decathlon's signing of Lund Andresen had been one of the quieter off-season moves; his early-season pace makes it look louder in retrospect.

Decathlon were the standout climbing team of the race. Nineteen-year-old Paul Seixas won the Fóia summit finish, held second overall all the way to Faro, and took the white young-rider jersey, with Matthew Riccitello backing him to sixth overall and launching him in the Malhão finale. A breakthrough week for one of the sport's brightest GC prospects.

Paul Lapeira was in the front group throughout the demanding finale and took fifth on the same time as the chase, just behind Hermans. A solid early-season ride on home roads, though the team couldn't put a rider into the two-up move that decided the race.

Decathlon placed two riders in the top eight of the reduced sprint — Tobias Lund Andresen seventh and Cees Bol eighth — a tidy double points haul without ever threatening the win. A solid Opening-Weekend showing of squad depth in the bunch finale.

Paul Seixas, the Tour de l'Avenir champion making his Strade debut, followed Pogačar over Monte Sante Marie and held on long enough to take a solo second. Decathlon's bet on the 19-year-old as a Monument-tier rider lands two months before Liège would confirm it again.

Decathlon's leader was 19 years old and wearing the leader's jersey of a WorldTour stage race. The first leader's jersey of Itzulia 2026 — and the third major performance of his spring after Strade Bianche second and before the Liège podium.

Decathlon CMA CGM left with the biggest prize through one of their youngest riders. Twenty-year-old Antoine L'Hote was active across both decisive days — third on the hilly stage, then the architect of his own GC win with a committed solo attack inside the final 15 km of the Le Mans stage. He converted it into the stage win and the overall, his first two professional victories, and the squad also placed Noa Isidore inside the GC top ten. A standout early-season return built around an emerging talent rather than an established leader.

Decathlon arrived as overwhelming favourites — Itzulia GC win three weeks earlier, Strade Bianche podium in March, the most-watched rider of the spring on his debut at Flèche. Their plan was control, not chaos: rotate the front through the closing 80 km, neutralise long-range threats, deliver Seixas to the base of the Mur in the top five. Worked exactly. Post-race Seixas: 'They gave it their all, 200%, and rode the whole time. Sometimes I had to fend for myself a bit, but they gave it their all.'

Decathlon arrived with a 19-year-old French climber whose outsider tag has been getting harder to justify each week. Strade Bianche second to Pogačar. Now Liège second to Pogačar. Cosnefroy did the most-aware front-of-race tempo work in the closing 50 km, dropping Evenepoel before Pogačar's Redoute move and protecting Seixas's position. For Decathlon, this is no longer development. This is leadership.

Felix Gall turned an outsider's GC brief into the runner-up's place. He was the only rider to hold Vingegaard's Blockhaus attack to seconds, shadowed the Dane through every mountain range, and finished second overall at +5:22 — comfortably the team's best Grand Tour result of the season. Sprinter Tobias Lund Andresen chased the first-week bunch finishes.

Decathlon CMA CGM were the most aggressive team of the day and were rewarded with two podium places, but not the victory. Backing the numbers of young hill specialist Noa Isidore and classics rider Paul Lapeira, they tested the front group on the penultimate Cadoudal ascent and led the sprint out early on the final ramp, hoping to outmanoeuvre Cosnefroy. Isidore took second and Lapeira third on the same time — a strong collective showing on the climb, but Cosnefroy's finishing speed denied them the win.

Decathlon matched Visma for bodies in the front move but couldn't convert. Pierre Gautherat was best of the team in fourth, contesting the chase-group sprint at the same time as the podium. With defending champion Bastien Tronchon off his best form and not a factor in the decisive selection, the day became a missed opportunity for a team that had the strength to win.

With Shmidt gone up the road, Decathlon CMA CGM drove the chase for Pierre Gautherat and were rewarded with the best of the rest. The 23-year-old won the dash of the reduced front group for second at +4 seconds, salvaging the podium step nearest the winner on a day the race slipped away on the circuit. Strong numbers and an aggressive finale, but the win was lost to Shmidt's timing.

Decathlon were consistently in the mix without quite landing the headline win. Stan Dewulf rode a strong all-round week to finish fourth overall and was second on the Stage 4 summit at Cassel, while Gianluca Pollefliet sprinted to third on the final stage in Dunkerque. A solid, near-podium return from the puncheur-and-cobbles stages that suited the squad.

The most prolific squad on stages. Kooij delivered the bookend bunch sprints on Stages 1 and 3 and walked off with the green points jersey, while neo-talent Noa Isidore rode into third overall and was second on the decisive Stage 2 — a strong climbing-and-sprinting double act that fell only on the wrong side of UAE's Stage 2 ambush.

Decathlon took control of the reduced front group after the crash and committed fully to Tobias Lund Andresen, the Danish home hope. They led into the final kilometre with two riders ahead of him, but Philipsen was a step quicker. Andresen second and Tord Gudmestad fourth gave the team two in the top four — a strong showing without the win.

Olav Kooij banked the stage 4 sprint in Aarschot, launching late to beat Merlier and Philipsen after finishing second to Merlier on stage 2 — a tidy reward on a day the GC was always going to stay quiet at the top.

With the road race scrapped, Sam Welsford gave INEOS the spoils in the substitute Cadel's Criterium, going clear in an eight-man move that his teammates protected, then winning the sprint. It capped a strong opening to his INEOS tenure after the Australian Criterium title, though the result carries no UCI points.

INEOS animated Stage 3 and were rewarded when 20-year-old Andrew August timed a daring late move to hold off the bunch for his first professional victory in San Vicente del Raspeig — an encouraging marker for one of the team's young talents.

INEOS spread their bets and cashed several in: Filippo Ganna dominated the Vilamoura time trial, Kévin Vauquelin (5th) and Thymen Arensman (9th) gave the squad two riders in the GC top ten, Oscar Onley took fourth overall and was runner-up at Malhão, and the depth delivered the team classification. Vauquelin's late counter-attack on the final stage was the move that briefly put the leaders under pressure.

INEOS opened with a Ganna-and-Arensman 1-2 in the ITT, then lost the leader's jersey on Stage 2's wet gravel. The week's tactical lesson: GC weeks rarely turn on time-trial dominance alone.

Pidcock — racing for Pinarello-Q36.5 now, not INEOS — read the race correctly: don't wait for the Poggio, follow Pogačar on the Cipressa, save the legs for a two-up sprint. Every step worked except the last one. Losing Sanremo by centimetres to the form rider on the planet is not a failure. It's the closest anyone got to him on a hilly Monument all spring.

Ganna's spring has had a half-dozen of these — long Classics where he survives the selection and gets out-sprinted by a true puncheur. This time the puncheur was Van Aert, and the long Classics scenario suited the Italian. Double bike change inside the closing 50 km and he still won. Cyclingnews and Rouleur had been predicting this exact result for two years.

INEOS placed two riders top five on Stage 1 — Vauquelin 2nd at +23, Van Wilder 5th at +29. Strong opening platform for a week where neither was billed as the headline rider.

Ganna was always going to need a Roubaix that finished in a group of six or fewer to take advantage of his sprint after attrition. The race went the opposite way — pure two-up. Inner Ring put him 'thirty seconds behind and closing, towing Jordi Meeus across' in the closing kilometres. He didn't quite get there. The Italian's Roubaix question — whether the diesel can land the explosive selection — remains open.

INEOS placed two riders on the GC podium but couldn't break Pellizzari. Egan Bernal was the most resilient challenger all week and the only rider to follow Storer's final-climb surge, taking second overall on his ongoing comeback. Thymen Arensman, the team's nominal leader, led the chase as runner-up into the last day but cracked on Montoppio, slipping to third — a frustrating internal flip that handed Bernal the runner-up spot. A strong collective showing, but the headline win went elsewhere.

Egan Bernal, five years past the crash that almost ended his career, finished fifth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Survived the closing climbs in the Evenepoel group, didn't have the legs to contest the podium sprint. The week's most under-reported result.

Day-one stage win + leader's jersey is the clean opening INEOS would have predicted. Godon's TT power matched the technical short course.

A strong supporting Giro: Filippo Ganna dominated the Stage 10 time trial and lit up the Rome finale, while Thymen Arensman rode into the GC podium fight, ultimately finishing fourth overall with former champion Egan Bernal a decisive road captain — it was Bernal's pacing on Piancavallo that protected Arensman's place in the closing mountains.

Racing as Netcompany–INEOS, the team led the stage-3 TTT at both checkpoints before settling for second, briefly putting Kévin Vauquelin second overall and Oscar Onley in the top ten. Both lost ground once the mountains arrived; Vauquelin went on the attack on the final stage. A solid if podium-less week.

A complete day for Alpecin-Premier Tech: Mathieu van der Poel took the win — his 50th in the World Cup — through two punctures, and his teammates Tibor Del Grosso and Niels Vandeputte (riding for the development squad) filled the other two podium steps. A 1-2-3 in a World Cup round is the kind of demonstration that has become the team's CX signature in the Van der Poel era, and it tightened MVDP's grip on the overall standings before the closing round.

Stage 2 was the kind of wet-gravel chaos Van der Poel uses to mark out his Strade Bianche form. Won the stage by riding gravel the way only he does on wet Italian roads.

Alpecin-Premier Tech placed two riders in the top ten — Henri Uhlig fourth and Roubaix-bound prospect Tibor Del Grosso ninth — but neither could bridge to the front duo when the race split on the cobbles. A useful Paris-Roubaix warm-up returning numbers without a result.

Van der Poel did everything right — was on the Cipressa move, was the third man over the top — and then couldn't hold Pogačar's Poggio acceleration. For a rider whose entire history says he wins Sanremo on the Poggio kick, being dropped on the Poggio is the rare outcome. Philipsen as sprint plan B never had a bunch sprint to contest.

Philipsen was the favourite and finished second behind Groenewegen — clean second-place for the team's sprint card.

Van der Poel used E3 the way the Belgians have always used it: as a course-specific test for the Ronde. Won solo with the exact climbing-sequence attack he'd attempt on April 5. The Ronde would not go the same way.

Alpecin's Gent-Wevelgem template — Van der Poel pulls the dangerous moves forward, the chase exhausts trying to bring it back, Philipsen wins the bunch. Worked again.

Alpecin rode the perfect Van der Poel race — sheltered through the first six bergs, brought to the front clean for the final Kwaremont with multiple lieutenants — and watched their leader fail to follow the wheel that mattered. There is no tactical critique here. Van der Poel was, on the day, second-best on a climb where he has historically been first.

A four-peat bid undone in the worst possible 2,400 metres of road. Van der Poel's race was a tactical certainty until Arenberg; afterwards it was triage. The team had planned to move on Orchies, attack before the final hour, exploit Mathieu's Carrefour gear. None of it could happen. Philipsen never got a clean run at his sprint card. Fourth place is salvage of the highest order, but it is salvage. A team source told Velo101: 'We had a very clear plan to attack before the final hour. When Mathieu punctures twice in Arenberg, everything collapses. We lost the race there.'

Emiel Verstrynge, a cyclocross specialist on Alpecin's roster, finished fourth at Liège. The day's strangest line on a result sheet, and one of the spring's quiet validations of what the new Alpecin programme is for. Did not contest the podium sprint; held position in the Evenepoel group.

Alpecin-Premier Tech started the Giro but left Rome without a stage win, classification jersey, or GC placing — a flat three weeks by the team's usual fast-finishing standards.

Jasper Philipsen has quietly assembled the best GC position of the sprinters by surviving the Durbuy queen stage and scooping bonus seconds in the bunch finishes. His stage 4 third place in Aarschot lifted him to second overall, just two seconds off Aranburu — putting Alpecin in position to attack the lead on the bonus sprints of the flat final stage.

Baptiste Veistroffer took the punchy Stage 2 to the Yitti Hills and briefly held the overall lead — a standout early-season result for the young Frenchman and the team's headline of the week before the GC men took over on the climbs.

Climber Jarno Widar made the final-lap split and contested the chase-group sprint, taking fourth at nine seconds. A punchy day for a rider better known for the high mountains, and a sign of the 20-year-old's range on a hilly classic finish.

Everything was going to plan for Arnaud De Lie on his 2026 racing debut — sitting on Girmay's wheel behind the NSN train, set to launch his first sprint of the year — until a hard shoulder-bump with leadout man Lewis Askey in the final metres cost him momentum. He salvaged sixth, a serviceable opener for a sprinter still building form after an off-season ankle injury.

Arnaud De Lie sprinted to a promoted fifth on the opener and rode in support through the sprint days, while Jarno Widar climbed to seventh overall — a quietly useful Algarve for Lotto Intermarché with no win but encouraging signs across two profiles.

With the leaders gone up the road, Lotto Intermarché backed Milan Menten in the dash for the minor places. He won the sprint of the chasing peloton for second at +2s, the best of those who couldn't make the front split — a solid return on a cobbled day that didn't suit a fast finisher.

Lotto Intermarché animated the race from both ends — Cedric Beullens spent the day in the six-man breakaway that survived to inside the final 1.6 km, while Steffen De Schuyteneer salvaged a strong fourth in the bunch sprint. Aggressive racing rewarded with a top-five, if not the win.

Home win for the German rider in his fifth year as a professional. Lotto-Intermarché's calendar leans on these single-race days; this was the season's biggest return.

Lotto-Intermarché lined up but the Giro passed them by — no stage, jersey, or GC podium across the three weeks.

Liam Slock was Lotto-Intermarché's GC card and delivered a steady week through the cobbles and the Cassel climb to take fifth overall at +14s — competitive on every selective day without ever quite challenging for a stage win. A reliable top-five from the squad's classics-oriented rider.

Lotto Intermarché backed Arnaud De Lie and were rewarded with a thrilling home stage win in Eupen and a GC podium. De Lie chased the win all week, timed his stage-4 sprint perfectly, then went for the double-and-heist in Aubel with Liam Slock launching him inside the final kilometre — only to be edged by Oliver at the line. Third overall at five seconds and a stage on Belgian roads made it a strong, if narrowly bittersweet, week.

Lotto-Intermarché backed Jenno Berckmoes, with home star Arnaud De Lie working for him on the front before sitting up roughly 13-15 km from the line, his job done. Berckmoes survived the climbs and the late pace to take fifth from the reduced sprint — a solid leader's result delivered by a committed team effort even if it came up short of the podium.

Soudal Quick-Step owned the bunch sprints through Paul Magnier, who won stages 1 and 4 into Tavira and Lagos, beating Jordi Meeus both times and sealing the green points classification. A clean two-from-two haul in the flat stages for the young Frenchman.

Soudal Quick-Step's nominal fast card Paul Magnier punctured on the Mont Saint-Laurent cobbles at the worst moment, as the front split. The team still salvaged a top-ten through Laurenz Rex in sixth from the reduced bunch — a respectable but not decisive return on a day they had hoped to contest the win.

Soudal Quick-Step ended the day with Mauri Vansevenant tenth and Gianmarco Garofoli eleventh, both surviving the Colla Micheri selection to finish in the front chase group at 44 seconds. A solid if unspectacular opener that kept the team in the mix without troubling the podium.

Soudal needed a bunch sprint and the Cipressa attacks neutralised that scenario two hours before it would have happened. Merlier was the sprint plan, Magnier the long-shot, both shelved when the front blew apart. No top-10.

Soudal Quick-Step rode Scheldeprijs exactly the way it suits Merlier: control the tempo all day on the flat, keep him out of trouble through the crash-hit finale, and trust his sprint to settle it from the wheels. Merlier obliged with a third straight win in Schoten — confirmation that on a pure, flat sprint this is his race more than anyone's.

Lampaert tried for the early break, didn't make it, then was the first big-name domestique dropped on the Briastre tempo. Merlier was Plan B if Roubaix came down to a group sprint; Roubaix did not come down to a group sprint. He admitted to Belgian press he 'didn't have top legs' and pivoted early to working for Van Baarle. No one from the team made the front split at Sector 12.

Soudal built their Giro around Paul Magnier's sprint, and the 21-year-old delivered a hat-trick — Burgas (Stage 1), Sofia (Stage 3) and Pieve di Soligo (Stage 18) — while fighting Narváez for the maglia ciclamino. The Belgian squad turned the bunch finishes into a showcase for cycling's next great fast man.

Soudal Quick-Step turned the race into a sprint showcase for Tim Merlier, who won three stages — the flat opener in Békéscsaba, the hilly Szekszárd day, and the Veszprém finale — and the points classification with it. The team also placed Junior Lecerf in the GC mix, the young climber surviving the Pécs queen stage in the front group to finish fourth overall at +0:56. A win-everywhere week: the sprints with Merlier, a GC top-five with Lecerf.

Soudal-Quick-Step rode as one of the pre-race favourites, massing at the front to control the closing kilometres for Paul Magnier, the Giro d'Italia points-classification winner. They delivered him into the reduced sprint in position, but the uphill finish blunted his kick — Magnier led out and faded to third as Strong and Foldager came over the top. The team did its job tactically yet left the win on the road.

Tim Merlier delivered the stage 2 sprint win in Knokke-Heist and briefly wore the leader's jersey, but as a pure sprinter he was always going to struggle on the Durbuy climbs, and he lost the lead and dropped out of GC contention on the queen stage. A second place behind Kooij in Aarschot on stage 4 underlined that the legs were there for the flat days but not the hills.

A complete Alpecin afternoon on the ice. Mathieu van der Poel did what he had done all winter — led into the circuit, went clear early and rode the frozen De Kuil sand flawlessly for his ninth straight win of the season. Behind him, 22-year-old Tibor Del Grosso was the best of the chasers and, even after crashing out of an early second place, regrouped to take second at +0:45, completing a 1-2 for the squad. Development-team rider Niels Vandeputte added fourth.

A total Alpecin show. Mathieu van der Poel did exactly what he had done all winter — turned a single early opening into an unbridgeable gap — and his teammates filled the placings behind: Tibor Del Grosso took the holeshot and finished fourth, while development-squad rider Niels Vandeputte was fifth. Benidorm sealed the world champion's overall World Cup title in a season he never lost a round he started.

Alpecin–Premier Tech owned the day. Van der Poel soloed to the win, and the team's young guns filled the chase — Tibor Del Grosso 2nd, development-team rider Niels Vandeputte 3rd, and Jente Michels rounding out the top 10. A World Cup finale won from the front and backed up across the result is exactly the depth picture the squad wanted heading into the following week's Worlds.

Jasper Philipsen used the Algarve as early-season sprint preparation, getting into the mix on stage 1 (fourth) but unable to match Magnier and Meeus across the flat stages. A form-building week ahead of the cobbled classics rather than a results one.

Alpecin came to a sprinters' semi-classic with the fastest man in the race and got the result the form-sheet demanded. Controlling the day so the break was caught and delivering Philipsen to the foot of the Nokereberg in position is exactly the kind of mid-March work that sharpens a lead-out for the cobbled Monuments to come. A clean, professional win.

Alpecin massed at the front in the final kilometre to deliver Jasper Philipsen, but he had to settle for eighth as Merlier came over the top from the wheels. A flat day that should have suited Philipsen's sprint instead slipped away in the crash-disrupted, scrappy finale.

Alpecin - Premier Tech were repeatedly second-best in the opening sprints, Simon Dehairs taking second on Stage 1 and Sente Sentjens second on Stage 2, both beaten by Crabbe. Consistently fast but unable to convert, the WorldTour team left Türkiye with placings rather than a win.

Niels Vandeputte was part of the small front group that shaped the men's race and was best of the rest once Van Aert went clear, taking second on the day. A strong gravel ride from one of the discipline's regular animators, even if there was no answer to the winner's late solo move.

Alpecin drove the reduced chase to bring back the breakaway, then delivered Philipsen into a chaotic, wet finish where he came over the top of Van Poppel's lead-out. A clean WorldTour one-day win in conditions that scrambled the script — exactly the kind of opportunism that defines Philipsen's racing.

Defending champion Edward Theuns opened the sprint but went too soon, getting swamped by the faster finishers behind and missing the top ten on a course where he had triumphed a year earlier. His early effort lit up the gallop but ultimately handed the slipstream to Groenewegen and the other fast men who came over the top.

Lidl-Trek planned for a reduced sprint with Pedersen and got something close to it — but the Cipressa selection happened a layer above them and they spent the descent and run-in trying to bring it back rather than contesting it. Pedersen's fourth is the textbook Monument near-miss; the Skjelmose and Ciccone follow-on cards never had a chance to deploy.

Pedersen reached the closing kilometres with the right group and the wrong legs to follow Pogačar; fifth in the bunch sprint behind Van Aert was a clean ride without a result. Milan, the team's sprint backup, never had a bunch sprint to contest.

Ayuso's transfer to Lidl-Trek over the off-season was meant to give him protected GC leadership; his Stage 1 TT was poor and the GC bid was effectively cancelled before the climbing stages started. Skjelmose remained a viable secondary card.

Lidl-Trek arrived with a dual-leader plan — Pedersen the protected card, Stuyven the second option. A bike change put Pedersen on a long lonely chase through the convoy. He never got back to the favourites. With the hierarchy resolved by the road, the team explicitly switched: Pedersen turned domestique for Stuyven. Stuyven, sensing the watchful silence between Visma and UAE after Pogačar's puncture, attacked across to the front of the chase group and held it home. Stuyven to Wielerflits: 'Mads really sacrificed himself for me. The other guys all rode themselves into the ground to keep me in position. It was all worth it.' Milan never had the legs to feature.

Defending champion finishes one second short. The Ardennes block was always going to be the team's most contested terrain this spring; finishing the first one of three by one second is a clean result.

Skjelmose held the second-tier chase group through the closing kilometres without ever threatening the front trio. Fifth on the same time as Baudin; the Ardennes week's two-from-three Skjelmose pursuit (he was second at Amstel, sixth ish-time at Liège to come) made him the most consistently top-10 Lidl-Trek Ardennes rider of the spring.

Two jerseys' worth of headlines. Giulio Ciccone took the Cima Coppi atop the Passo Giau to wrestle the mountains classification off Vingegaard and carried the maglia azzurra to Rome, while Jonathan Milan closed the race by winning the bunch sprint on the Via del Circo Massimo. A campaign built on both the high passes and the flat finishes.

The Classics man timed his trademark Wertz Avenue attack to perfection and soloed nearly 30 km to a commanding third elite road race title — the stars-and-stripes jersey back on his shoulders.

Biniam Girmay's move to the new NSN Cycling Team began perfectly: a Stage 1 sprint win, the first leader's jersey held for three days, and the points classification by week's end. For a ProTeam outfit, fronting the race lead through the first half and walking away with the points jersey was a headline result.

A landmark result for the small NSN outfit and for 21-year-old Pau Martí, who made the decisive selection over the circuit's final-lap climb and then sprinted to third behind the escaped leaders. A podium against WorldTour firepower is the headline ride of the team's day and an early-season marker for one of the under-23 talents the race always seems to surface.

NSN turned a chaotic, crash-marred finale into a textbook leadout. With four riders at the front inside the final kilometre — Hugo Hofstetter and Lewis Askey prominent in the train — they controlled the chase after the break was caught and delivered Biniam Girmay into the perfect position. It was Girmay's second win of the young season and the kind of collective execution that signalled NSN meant to be a force in the sprints.

NSN Cycling were arguably the strongest collective of the week, even without the overall. Ethan Vernon was untouchable in the bunch sprints, winning both flat stages and leading the race in its early days, while Corbin Strong rode a consistent, front-of-race week to finish third on GC and runner-up on the final stage in Le Mans. Two stage wins plus a podium is a heavy haul for the ProTeam against the WorldTour squads in the field.

Lewis Askey was one of the most active riders in the closing ribinoù, going clear in the strong lead group with around 30 km to go and then taking third in the sprint for the minor placings. A standout podium on a marquee gravel-flavoured Classic and a high-water result for the squad against WorldTour opposition.

The Latvian-registered NSN Cycling Team punched well above its weight, with Riley Sheehan animating the finales all week, leading the race at one point and finishing second overall by just two seconds. Sheehan was denied a stage win by De Lie in Eupen and scrapped for every bonus second to the final day, while Krists Neilands added a podium on stage 3. A near-miss for the GC, but a hugely encouraging week for the ProTeam.

Biniam Girmay survived the splits on the climbs to make the front group and contested the sprint hard, but couldn't overhaul Meeus or Fretin, taking third. A podium that shows his legs are there even if the win still eludes him this stretch of the season.

NSN turned a chaotic, attack-laden finale into a clean lead-out. Rather than chase the early moves themselves, the team let Visma and others burn matches lifting the pace, then committed late: Riley Sheehan delivered Corbin Strong to the front for the uphill drag, and Strong launched first to hold off Foldager and Magnier. A first win of 2026 for the New Zealander and a marquee ProSeries result for the squad, which also fielded former Franco-Belge winner and home-roads sprinter Biniam Girmay.

An aggressive, productive week for NSN: Biniam Girmay won the opening stage and the first leader's jersey in a bunch sprint, and Lewis Askey then went close on the queen stage, leading out the Muur van Durbuy sprint only to be passed by Aranburu in the final metres for second. Two different riders contending on two very different stage profiles.

Jayco had the race in a vice — Durbridge and O'Connor in the front group, Plapp in reserve — and lost it to their own tactics. Durbridge's long-range solo was the percentage play, but Plapp's decisive chase attack towed three rivals across and caught his own leader inside the final kilometre, leaving Plapp to be beaten in the sprint. A year after gifting Durbridge the title, the numerical advantage produced silver, not gold.

Jayco played the finale to perfection. Getting two riders into the decisive split against a single UAE leader handed them control of the sprint: Plapp buried himself on the front to prevent a regroup and then lead out, while Schmid finished the job. A clean opening statement of the season's punch-and-team-tactics blueprint, and the kind of result that justifies a deep, finisher-led squad at a ProSeries one-dayer.

Mauro Schmid rode the week of his GC life — winning the Stage 3 uphill at Misfat al Abriyeen, taking the leader's jersey and defending it across Stage 4 — but the short, savage Jabal al Akhdhar finish is a pure-climber's test, and he was the first GC man to crack when Yates and Scaroni went. He slid to fourth at +44s, with Paul Double fifth. A strong, attacking ride that fell agonisingly short of the podium on the final climb.

Pascal Ackermann, a two-time former winner of this race, again proved his enduring class on the Belgian coast, fighting through to second in the bunch sprint. Quick enough to be in the mix but unable to come around Groenewegen, the German left Koksijde with the frustration of a near-miss on a course that has suited him before.

Bruges was Groenewegen's first major spring win. The team's calendar through the cobbled block had been thin; this was the strongest opening day.

Brabantse Pijl delivered Jayco AlUla a marquee one-day Classics win through 24-year-old Dane Anders Foldager, who read the uphill drag finish perfectly to take the biggest victory of his career. A pure puncheur's win on a course that has crowned Alaphilippe, Van Aert and Evenepoel — exactly the kind of breakthrough result the team has been chasing in the Ardennes-opener slot.

An anonymous Giro for the Australian squad: no stage win, jersey, or GC placing of note, their best mark a 10th place in the final team classification. Three weeks that quietly passed them by.

Luke Plapp carried Jayco-AlUla's GC card and rode a steady, consistent week to the final podium. On the decisive Pécs queen stage he was in the lead GC group, finishing third on the stage and limiting his losses to Söderqvist, which was enough to secure third overall at +0:49. A solid, if unspectacular, podium result for the Australian.

Jayco-AlUla's Anders Foldager timed the strongest finishing surge of the day, coming past a fading Magnier in the final metres to take second, only narrowly denied by Strong's early launch. A near-miss that confirmed the Dane's form on punchy finishes after surviving a finale designed to drop the fast men.

Cofidis put two riders in the front group and very nearly won: Alex Aranburu forced the move on the final ramp and was the only rider able to go with Morgado, but came up short in the two-man sprint for second. Veteran Ion Izagirre backed him up in fifth from the chase group at nine seconds. A strong, aggressive day that lacked only the finishing kick.

Defending champion Milan Fretin couldn't repeat his 2025 victory but was the only rider able to come close to Girmay in the gallop, taking second on the same time. A strong opening marker for the French team's fastest finisher even without the win.

Cofidis took the bunch-sprint spoils through Milan Fretin's win on the uphill drag into Lopera, while Alex Aranburu's consistency across the punchy and climbing days earned the points classification. A productive, multi-rider Andalucía for the French team.

The French WorldTour team's fast man Stanisław Aniołkowski won the reduced bunch sprint into Fethiye on Stage 4 and added third on the final stage in Ankara, the high points of an otherwise quiet GC week. A stage win and a couple of sprint podiums was a solid return for a team that came primarily for the bunch finishes.

Alexis Renard carried Cofidis into the day's decisive front group and won the sprint of the chasers for second place, beaten only by Fiorelli's perfectly timed solo. A strong runner-up on a brutally selective parcours and a reminder of the team's depth in the rough-road French one-day races.

Cofidis came closest on the opening day, when Bryan Coquard was beaten only by Pithie in the Laon uphill sprint and briefly sat second overall and led the teams classification. As the race turned to the cobbles and the Cassel summit, the pure-sprint cards faded down the order and Cofidis (Coquard, Maisonobe, Izquierdo, Thomas all in the GC top 15 at points) couldn't convert a stage despite plenty of presence. A near-miss week.

Milan Fretin made the decisive front selection on the climbs and was perfectly placed in the finale, surging in the closing metres. He came up just short of Meeus but took second on home Belgian roads — a strong result that confirms his sprint form in a hectic finish.

Cofidis have the race lead with one stage to go thanks to a perfectly judged ride from Alex Aranburu on the Durbuy queen stage. He timed his uphill sprint to come over the top of Lewis Askey on the Muur van Durbuy, winning the stage and taking the jersey from the sprinters. The challenge now is to defend a two-second margin on a flat final day made for the fast men.

Uno-X had two strings to its bow: Erlend Blikra won the Stage 4 bunch sprint to Sohar, and Martin Tjøtta sat third on GC after the Stage 3 selection before fading to ninth overall by the finish. A productive desert week split between the flat and the climbs.

Andreas Leknessund was the one rider to go with Romeo's race-defining stage-2 move and paid for it by only seven seconds in the final standings — so near and yet so far. Sprinter Søren Wærenskjold added second on stage 4. A strong, aggressive week that came up just short of the overall win.

Tobias Halland Johannessen was the strongest in pursuit when Pidcock went clear, chasing across the final 600 metres to take second at four seconds. A standout result for the Norwegian ProTeam on a parcours that suited the pure climbers.

Uno-X Mobility were a constant presence and came within 12 seconds of the overall. Erlend Blikra was the nearly-man of the sprints, second behind Vernon on both flat stages, while Alexander Kamp delivered the team's headline day — winning the hilly stage to take the leader's jersey, a result that echoed his 2023 victory here. L'Hote's final-day solo ultimately denied Kamp the repeat, leaving him second overall, but a stage and the runner-up GC spot made for a strong race.

A landmark for the Norwegian project: Fredrik Dversnes went clear into Milan on Stage 15 to give Uno-X Mobility its first stage win at the Giro d'Italia — reward for a team that has made breakaway racing its signature.

Rasmus Tiller was the standout of the cobbled day, soloing to victory in Wallers Arenberg on the Paris-Roubaix pavé and using the result to climb onto the final GC podium in third. The Norwegian's classics strength made him a constant presence near the front through the selective middle stages, and Erik Resell added top-10 sprint placings. A productive week that confirmed Tiller's form on the cobbles.

Uno-X refused to settle for a bunch sprint, throwing Jonas Abrahamsen, Rasmus Tiller and Erik Resell at the race in the closing kilometres. Each move was patiently closed down by Red Bull, leaving the aggressive Norwegian outfit empty-handed despite the entertainment.

A strong all-round week for the ProTeam: Anthon Charmig won the marathon stage 2 from the break, and Tobias Halland Johannessen climbed superbly across the mountain stages — second on stage 6, third on both stages 7 and 8 — to take fifth overall. Excellent value from the wildcard squad.

Romain Grégoire rode an intelligent GC week — raiding the stage-4 Golden Kilometre for bonus seconds, then taking third on the final mountain stage to finish fifth overall at +0:44. Paul Penhoët added second on stage 3. A promising all-round opening to 2026 for the team's young leaders.

Groupama-FDJ United landed the marquee result of the Drôme-Ardèche weekend through Romain Grégoire, who read the finale perfectly: he covered Jorgenson's decisive Mur d'Allex move, shared the work to keep the chase at bay, then beat the Visma rider in the uphill two-up sprint. A win built on patience and positioning rather than spectacle, and a confidence-builder for the 23-year-old Frenchman early in the Classics season.

Romain Grégoire was among the very strongest, making the decisive split on the Colla Micheri and reaching the lead trio. But with two Bahrain riders alongside him he was outnumbered when Buitrago attacked, and despite leading the chase he could not close the gap, taking second at 25 seconds. A strong early-season result for the young puncheur-climber on terrain that suits him, just short of the win.

Romain Grégoire rode aggressively into the finale, joining the late lead group that briefly looked like it would settle the race before being caught on the S-bend. When it reset to a sprint he took fourth at the same time as the winner — an attacking ride that confirmed his form heading into the Ardennes proper.

Lacking an obvious favourite for the uphill finish, Groupama - FDJ United tried to animate the race, contributing to the chase and the tempo over the top of Cadoudal to avoid a controlled sprint. They could not break the grip of UAE and Decathlon, but Thibaud Gruel was best of the rest, taking fourth from the front group on the same time as the winner — a solid return for the young hill specialist.

Beaten only by Cosnefroy's Stage 2 move. Thibaud Gruel was the best of the young riders all week, finished second overall at 7 seconds and claimed the white youth jersey, and with Molard and Decomble backing him the squad also won the team classification — the best collective return behind the winner.

Clément Braz Afonso rode aggressively in the early breakaways, mopping up climbing points across the opening stages to win the mountains classification — a tangible jersey reward from a week spent up the road.

Pinarello-Q36.5 saved their week for the decisive day and were rewarded twice over: Tom Pidcock's solo attack on the final climb to Lucena delivered both the stage win and a jump onto the overall podium in third. A statement ride that justified holding their cards until the mountains.

Quinten Hermans was again prominent in a hilly finale, taking fourth at the head of the chase group two seconds down. The Belgian puncheur survived the 17 climbs and contested the sprint for the minor placings, but the decisive move had already gone clear on the Mur d'Allex.

Tom Pidcock's first major race in Pinarello-Q36.5 kit — formerly INEOS, now riding for the smaller WorldTour outfit. 7th at Strade is a clean opening statement; two weeks later he'd come within centimetres of beating Pogačar at Sanremo.

With designated leader Tom Pidcock absent from the start line, Quinten Hermans carried the team's card and delivered a strong runner-up in the reduced-group sprint, only beaten by Foldager's late jump on the drag to the line. A clean podium that keeps Pinarello-Q36.5 visible at the front of the Ardennes-opener.

Pidcock's spring has had three runner-up finishes (Sanremo by centimetres, Eschborn here, plus another). The pattern of the wrong margin is becoming notable.

The ProTeam wildcard rode its Giro invitation without converting it into a stage win, jersey, or GC result — a hard three weeks for the smaller squad.

Astana were everywhere on the selective days. Sergio Higuita rode aggressively all week — third on the Stage 3 summit, then attacking first on the Stage 5 climb despite a crash at km 88 — to finish second overall, just 13 seconds short. Matteo Malucelli supplied the headline stage win on Stage 4, pouncing on a burnt-out Milan's wheel in the chaotic Hegra sprint, and Nicolas Vinokurov added a GC top-10. A productive, attacking week that yielded a stage and the runner-up step.

Astana were active and well-represented in the closing kilometres: Christian Scaroni took fourth at +0:13 and Henok Mulubrhan rounded out the top eight, a solid collective showing on the punchy finale even if they never had the firepower to match the Jayco move.

XDS Astana's 2026 form continuation reached its peak here: a perfectly executed final-stage coup on Green Mountain. Scaroni shadowed the moves and timed his attack inside the last kilometre to overturn a four-second deficit, while Cristián Rodríguez delivered second on the stage and overall to lock out the top two. Diego Ulissi and Henok Mulubrhan had already kept the team prominent on the sprint and hilly days (Mulubrhan 2nd on Stage 2), making this a deep, week-long team performance rather than a single-rider raid.

XDS Astana placed two riders in the top six on home roads, with the veteran Diego Ulissi best of the chasers in fourth and Christian Scaroni sixth in the reduced group. The team was active throughout but lacked the legs to follow the decisive trio over the Colla Micheri, leaving them racing for the minor placings behind Buitrago.

The WorldTour squad's veteran classics man Davide Ballerini won the punchy Stage 7 circuit in Antalya and finished fifth on the final day, while the team's collective depth — Ballerini and Henok Mulubrhan both prominent — carried it to the overall teams classification. A productive Türkiye for the strongest-billed squad in the field, even if the GC was contested by smaller teams.

Astana were the surprise stage-hunting force of the Giro, taking three: Guillermo Silva from a small group in Veliko Tarnovo (Stage 2), Davide Ballerini in the cobbled Naples sprint (Stage 6) and Alberto Bettiol from the break (Stage 13). Christian Scaroni added the team's habitual presence in the mountain breakaways. A return far beyond pre-race expectations.

Lidl - Trek came for the flat days and delivered. Jonathan Milan was the fastest man in the desert, winning the crosswind-affected Stage 1 from a reduced group and then a cleaner Stage 2 bunch kick to take a stranglehold on the points classification, which he wore home. The hat-trick bid fell short on Stage 4 when, without a clean lead-out, Milan went too early and faded to second behind Malucelli, but two wins and the green jersey made it a thoroughly successful campaign for the team's sprint project once the road tilted uphill and GC ambitions ended.

A dream Algarve for Lidl-Trek's new signing-led project: Juan Ayuso delivered the overall on his team debut, racing aggressively to take yellow at Fóia, defend it against Ganna in the ITT, and seal it with the stage win at Malhão. The team had the firepower to shut down the dangerous late move on the final stage, and young Swede Jakob Söderqvist's surprise ITT podium underlined the squad's depth.

Lidl-Trek built the entire week around one stage and executed it perfectly. Jakob Söderqvist was held in reserve through the sprint days and then unleashed on the rain-shortened Pécs queen stage, attacking clear on the final climb to win the stage and take the overall lead in a single move. The team then locked the race down on the hilly Veszprém finale to protect a 40-second buffer all the way to the line. For a developing rider it was a breakthrough stage-race overall and a clean tactical win for the team.

Lidl - Trek made the race hard on Stage 2 — their tempo brought back the break and split the field — but the move ultimately served Cosnefroy rather than themselves. Söderqvist's prologue second was the closest they came to yellow; Mads Pedersen took two stage podiums (2nd on Stage 3) and finished fourth overall, third in the points, without converting to a win.

Lidl–Trek had the most consistent firepower: Quinn Simmons won stage 4 from the break, and Juan Ayuso — backed by Mattias Skjelmose — recovered from the stage-6 split to finish second on both mountain stages and take third overall. A two-pronged GC approach that salvaged a podium from a difficult mid-race.

Bahrain centred their week on Afonso Eulálio, who bridged to Christen on the Stage 3 climb and took second on the summit behind Voisard, riding into GC contention. He held on through the final climb to finish fifth overall at +29 seconds. The team also did much of the front-of-bunch chasing on Stage 5, but without a stage win or a podium step it was a solid rather than spectacular campaign for the squad.

Lenny Martinez was the strongest of the chasers, leading the reduced group home two seconds behind the leaders to round out the podium in third. The young climber couldn't get across to the Grégoire–Jorgenson move once it went on the Mur d'Allex, but salvaged a podium from the disorganised pursuit behind.

Bahrain - Victorious controlled the decisive phase and turned a numerical advantage in the lead trio into a dominant result. Buitrago was the strongest on the Colla Micheri and timed his solo move perfectly with around 11 km to go, while Tiberi marked Grégoire and rode in for third at the same time. A double on the podium and Buitrago's first victory in over a year, an emphatic season-opening statement for the team.

With Red Bull untouchable, Bahrain Victorious focused on being the best of the rest, and 20-year-old Slovenian Jakob Omrzel delivered on home roads. He stayed prominent through the climbing stages and limited his losses on Vršič and its descent to take third on the queen stage and third overall, also moving into the white jersey as best young rider. Edoardo Zambanini added a stage 1 podium (third) from the early sprints.

Antonio Tiberi was Bahrain Victorious's GC card and finished a close fourth overall, just outside the podium and only two seconds behind Pellizzari — a respectable opener that flagged his early-season climbing form.

Tiberi's third on stage 1 set him up as the principal non-UAE GC threat of the week. The Bahrain Victorious 2026 spring depended on his progression; this was the opening signal.

Bahrain Victorious turned a two-up move into a prestige win through nerve rather than power. Segaert sat patiently behind Hagenes for nearly 10 km, conceding 20 metres without panicking, then judged the peloton's closing speed perfectly and jumped late enough that no one could respond. A statement cobbled result for the 23-year-old Belgian rouleur a week out from the cobbled Monument build-up.

Bahrain's race of the season. Afonso Eulálio rode into the maglia rosa off a huge Stage 5 breakaway and defended it for nine days — surviving the Stage 10 time trial that nearly erased his buffer — before Vingegaard finally prised it away at Pila on Stage 14. Alec Segaert added a breakaway win on Stage 12. For a team without a GC favourite, holding pink that long was a genuine triumph.

The team's day turned on a single moment: Thibau Nys, expected to be Van der Poel's nearest challenger, flipped over the fencing into the crowd on lap four and broke his handlebars, ending any hope of a result. He battled back to 19th on a spare bike. Pim Ronhaar salvaged ninth to put the squad in the top ten.

With the win never on the table once Van der Poel was gone, Thibau Nys raced for the best available result and got it — patient through the mid-race lull, then decisive on the final lap to drop Felipe Orts and claim second. A clean afternoon of damage limitation against an unbeatable leader.

Thibau Nys was the leading non-Alpecin rider all day and finished fourth at six seconds, but with Van der Poel recovering twice from punctures and the Alpecin pair riding clear behind him, there was no podium on offer. Nys went into the final round at Hoogerheide trailing Van der Poel by 38 points in the overall — too large a margin to overturn in a single race. The team's Pim Ronhaar and Lars van der Haar had quieter days, Ronhaar abandoning.

Thibau Nys was the strongest of the non-Alpecin riders and took the chase sprint on, opening it from the front — but he was swamped in the final metres and ended 4th, just off the podium. Team veteran Lars van der Haar was a little further back in 11th. A solid but unrewarded day against an in-form Alpecin block.

Spanish home win to close the race: Raúl García Pierna had been active all week, taking mountain points on Stage 3, and capped it by winning the aggressive short final stage into Valencia from the breakaway.

Movistar's home race could hardly have gone better. Iván Romeo turned a stage-2 solo win into the leader's jersey and, despite having no team-mate among the leaders on the decisive final climb, defended the overall by seven seconds with a smart, controlled ride. The squad also took the teams classification, capping a near-perfect February for Spanish cycling's flagship team.

Movistar raced aggressively around Cian Uijtdebroeks, who was among the most active on the Superga climbs and briefly had teammates control the pace for him. He countered Roglič inside the final kilometre but couldn't match Pidcock's acceleration, finishing fifth at thirteen seconds.

Movistar were Pithie's most persistent challengers. Natnael Tesfatsion won the punchy Stage 4 to Cassel with a perfectly timed late acceleration and rode into second overall, finishing the week just seven seconds shy of the win. The team also led the teams classification through the middle of the race on collective strength (Canal, Serrano, Barrenetxea all prominent). Without a way to claw back bonus seconds on the flat final stage, second was the ceiling — but a strong, aggressive Hauts-de-France campaign.

Tudor's week pivoted on Yannis Voisard. He timed the Stage 3 summit-finish sprint to perfection to win ahead of Eulálio and Higuita and take the overall lead, which the team defended through the Stage 4 sprint day. But the steeper, longer final climb to the Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid exposed his limits: Voisard was the first GC rider dropped and slid to sixth overall. A stage win and two days in the leader's jersey still made it a strong outing for the ProTeam.

Tudor were the strongest collective in the finale, placing two riders on the podium with Luca Mozzato second and the 36-year-old Matteo Trentin third. They had the numbers to dictate a sprint but lacked the single fastest wheel; against Brennan with a Laporte lead-out, second and third was the ceiling. A strong ProSeries result for the Swiss outfit, tempered by the sense that the race was winnable.

Tudor turned an aggressive week into tangible rewards. Lennart Jasch soloed from the break to a breakthrough win on the Stage 4 queen stage in Trento and rode himself into the mountains classification, which he won. Defending champion Michael Storer was a key animator on the final climb — his pacing helped drop Arensman — and finished fourth overall, with neo-pro Mathys Rondel fifth, giving Tudor two riders in the top five.

Veteran Lawrence Warbasse took third from the chase group.

The newly rebranded Netcompany INEOS opened its account in style. 22-year-old American Artem Shmidt - the reigning national time-trial champion in his second pro season - read the wet, windy finale perfectly, jumping inside the final 14 km, bridging to the last escapee and soloing clear for his first professional road victory. The team backed it up with Kim Heiduk seventh out of the chasing group, animating the run-in and converting a brutal day of attrition into both the win and a top-ten. A statement result for the project's first race week under the new name.

Kim Heiduk was a fixture at the front, taking podiums on stages 1 and 3 and holding the race lead into stage 4 before the bonus-seconds battle slipped away. Netcompany INEOS were consistently in the mix on the punchy finishes without quite landing a stage or the overall.

Netcompany came forward late for Sam Welsford, who navigated the wet, crash-affected finale to take third. A solid podium for the sprinter on a day that punished hesitation.

ProTeam Flanders-Baloise grabbed a marquee scalp when 20-year-old Tom Crabbe powered off Axel Zingle's wheel to win the bunch sprint in Pozoblanco — his second victory of a fast-starting young season and a standout result for the development squad.

The Belgian Continental team was the revelation of the sprints thanks to 20-year-old Tom Crabbe. He won the opening two stages back-to-back to lead the race early, then closed it out with a hat-trick-completing win on the flat Ankara finale — a third victory that also clinched the points classification. The lead-out work, with Stefano Oldani launching the final sprint in Ankara, was sharp all week. Three WorldTour-quality sprints from a young rider on a small team marked Crabbe as one to watch.

The Belgian ProTeam played an outsized role, helping to bring the climb-splintered peloton back together — the move that handed Meeus his second chance. Ferre Geeraerts was caught in the late crash but continued. A day of working for others rather than a result.

Young Czech sprinter Pavel Bittner continued his early-season progress with third place, holding his line in a frantic finale to round out the podium. A strong, repeatable result for Picnic PostNL's developing fast man against an experienced field of pure sprinters.

Picnic PostNL spent the day among the teams driving the chase on the flat to Schoten, and 23-year-old Pavel Bittner repaid the work with a strong second place — beaten only by Merlier and a clear best of the rest in the reduced bunch.

The Dutch WorldTour squad took its stage through sprinter Casper van Uden, who won the longest day of the race, the 180.7 km coastal stage to Kemer. It was the team's marquee result of the week — a clean sprint victory on a day built for the fast men.

The Spanish ProTeam was the day's collective overperformer, placing three riders inside the top ten — Eduard Prades (5th), Fernando Barceló (8th) and Alex Molenaar (10th) all surviving the climbs and contesting the reduced-group finish. A standout team result against WorldTour opposition in a marquee Classic.

The Spanish ProTeam landed the race's biggest prize through Sebastian Berwick. Rather than chase the early lead on the Kıran summit — where they ceded the jersey to Sosa — they backed their climber to peak on the queen stage, and the plan paid off precisely: Berwick attacked on Feslikan, took second on the stage and the turquoise jersey, then was defended flawlessly by the team across the final two days, including controlling the flat Ankara finale to neutralise any late danger to a five-second lead. Berwick added the mountains classification, and Fernando Gaviria chipped in with a top-five on the Stage 7 circuit. A complete, well-managed overall victory.

Alex Baudin's stage-1 breakaway win gave EF the inaugural leader's jersey, which the team defended for five days before the stage-6 split ended the spell. A standout result for Baudin and an aggressive, high-visibility week for the team even without a GC finish.

Richard Carapaz was the only rider willing to take Pogačar on, chasing alone on stage 1 to finish second and establish himself as best-placed GC challenger. He clings to second overall, but a heavy loss in the stage 4 time trial blew his deficit out to 4:22 — and dropped Vacek to within five seconds of him for the runner-up spot.

Alex Baudin's sixth on the same time as Skjelmose was the season's first top-10 statement from the French climber EF have built around for the Ardennes. The team's quietly-targeted long-shot card lined up against Seixas's overwhelming-favourite card and finished a couple of seconds back.

EF got the result every breakaway team chases: Michael Valgren soloed to Andalo on Stage 17 for the first Grand Tour stage win of his long career. A single, well-judged move that justified a fortnight of aggression from the break.

The American development squad punched above its weight on the climbs. Byron Munton was the surprise of the final day, surviving Higuita's attack to crest with the leaders and then finishing second on Stage 5 behind Christen. Stefan de Bod rode a steady, consistent week to take fourth overall at +25 seconds. Two riders in the GC top four for a small ProTeam was a standout result against WorldTour-backed climbing rosters.

The week of George Hincapie's American Continental project. Ben Oliver's stage 2 win in the Libramont-Chevigny rain was the team's first European victory and its biggest result by some distance, and from there he raced a tactically perfect bonus-seconds campaign. The final-day double in Aubel sealed the overall by two seconds and the points classification too — a landmark result for a squad targeting an American revival and one of the standout giant-killing performances of the season.

Spanish champion Felipe Orts lit up his home round, attacking on lap five to force the podium fight before being narrowly dropped by Nys on the last lap — third on home soil, the standout Spanish result of the World Cup. Joris Nieuwenhuis backed it up in seventh.

Felipe Orts (6th) and Joris Nieuwenhuis (7th) both landed inside the top seven, leading the second wave of the chase. A clean team result on Dutch terrain, if never in contention for the podium fight up front.

Kevin Vermaerke was the strongest of the chasers, winning the sprint for second once Simmons was gone.

UAE execute a measured TTT with Isaac del Toro supporting Pogačar through the city sections before the Slovenian attacks the finale. Pogačar's fastest-last-split earns the polka-dot jersey but he leaves Barcelona 12 seconds behind Vingegaard — a gap that must be reversed in the mountains.

The ProTeam's marquee sprinter justified his billing on the Flemish coast. Groenewegen kept position through a hectic, late catch of the breakaway, judged the run-in perfectly and powered past an early Theuns lead-out to win Bredene Koksijde Classic — a statement early-season classic result for a squad built around his fast finish.

Clément Venturini gave the Unibet Rose Rockets a place in every decisive finale, taking third on the closing Le Mans stage and finishing fourth overall at 25 seconds. For the Continental-level outfit it was a strong showing against deeper-resourced teams, even if the podium and a stage win stayed narrowly out of reach.

The Bataia Brigade gravel outfit took the headline men's win through 23-year-old Kamiel Notebaert, who read the flat, fast Drenthe finish best to win a tight group sprint from Tijmen Eising and Rick Ottema. A pure power-and-positioning result on a course with almost no climbing to thin the field.

Australian national champion Tiffany Cromwell opened her gravel season with a commanding solo win, becoming the first three-time winner of SEVEN. She methodically reduced the front group, then attacked on the closing loop and time-trialled clear by over a minute. Cromwell framed it as a confidence-restoring result after a difficult few months and a marker as she eyes the rainbow jersey on the same Nannup course in October.

CIC Pro Cycling Academy's Axel Mariault was the last survivor of the day's three-man break, holding the front of the race until the Mont-Saint-Eloi circuit before Shmidt bridged across and rode away. Caught and distanced in the finale, he rolled home well down the result, but the move kept a ProTeam name at the front of a wet, attritional race for most of the day.

With the Alpecin pair untouchable and Nys eliminated by his crash, Emiel Verstrynge rode the smartest race of the rest — steady and error-free on the treacherous icy off-cambers — to take third at +1:03, the best non-Alpecin result of the day and a strong Belgian podium on home soil.

Decathlon built the race around 19-year-old Paul Seixas, who attacked the favourites on stage 6 and rode into the GC top six. But a stage-7 crash forced a brutal ~70 km chase, and the accumulated cost saw him dropped and abandon on stage 8's Montée de Bisanne. A week that flashed his immense potential against the sport's best, ended by misfortune. Léo Bisiaux supported with a stage-1 podium and aggressive riding.

Kern Pharma's Iván Sosa was the man who made the race. The Colombian climber took the first summit at Kıran to win the stage and the leader's jersey, and defended it through the sprint days, but was undone on the steeper slopes of the Feslikan queen stage where Berwick distanced him. Five seconds was the final margin — agonisingly close. Marc Brustenga added top-tens in the bunch finishes. An aggressive, front-foot campaign that fell just short of the overall.

The Factor Racing program was the standout squad in Monaco, taking the men's elite win through Romain Bardet — his third UCI Gravel victory of the 2026 season after Castellon and RADL GRVL — and adding the women's runner-up spot through Nicole Frain. Petr Vakoc also finished inside the top six of the men's race. Gravel's privateer landscape rarely produces a clean team narrative, but Factor's road-to-gravel crossover riders dominated the Riviera round.

Brendan Johnston rode a patient, course-savvy race on the future Worlds parcours, sitting in while O'Brien tried to break the group on the climbs and then using his finishing knowledge to ride away in the closing kilometres. The win — his fifth consecutive UCI gravel victory and a repeat of his 2024 SEVEN title — banked valuable course intelligence ahead of October's World Championships on the same roads.

Romain Grégoire read the stage 2 finale perfectly, surviving in the breakaway over the closing climbs and unleashing a dominant sprint from the final corner in Locarno to take the win ahead of Camprubí and Lemmen — a tidy reward for aggressive racing on a day the GC was always going to stay quiet.

No win, but a steady presence in the bunch gallops: Corbin Strong banked a string of top-eight finishes in the first-week sprints, the New Zealander confirming his place among the fast men on a Giro otherwise dominated by Magnier and Milan.

Maxim Van Gils made the decisive stage-6 split and timed his sprint perfectly at Crest-Voland to win the day that blew the race apart — the headline result of the team's week.

The Hungarian Continental squad grabbed the headline stage win of the week: young climber Christian Bagatin survived from the breakaway to take the queen stage at the Feslikan summit, the biggest result of his career, on the very day the GC was decided behind him. The team was also visible in the sprints (Davide Persico twice on the podium, Marcin Budziński second on Stage 5) and placed Alessandro Fancellu in the GC top ten. A standout week for a small outfit.

Ineos's TTT was disrupted by Vauquelin's puncture near the third checkpoint, yet Filippo Ganna held second place individually through sheer individual strength. The mechanical cost them any chance of the stage win but Ganna's 21'55'' remains a powerful statement of TT ability.

Cyclocross Worlds are national-team races, and the Dutch arrived in Hulst with Van der Poel as the only rider who mattered for the result. Joris Nieuwenhuis, Lars van der Haar and the supporting cast played the limiting role — the day was always the leader's.

The ProTeam stole the headlines on Stage 2: with two riders (Papon and Hänninen) up the road from km 13, Nice Métropole-Côte d'Azur turned an aggressive plan into Victor Papon's breakaway win in Liévin — their first victory of the 2026 season against WorldTour and ProTeam sprint squads. Papon also held the mountains and, briefly, the points jersey. A standout day for a small French outfit.

Germany's Romy Kasper delivered the women's elite victory for PAS Racing, getting clear of Clara Lundmark and Wendy Oosterwoud to take one of the bigger one-day gravel wins on the World Series calendar.

Pidcock made his Milano-Torino debut count, with the team helping control the early break before he rode the Superga finale as an aggressor and then delivered the perfectly timed winning move. A statement result on Italy's oldest classic ahead of the spring's bigger one-day objectives.

Tom Pidcock used the race to confirm his form after a Volta a Catalunya crash, going close on Stage 1 before nailing a perfectly timed sprint to win Stage 3 in Arco. Seventh overall and a willing animator of the final-stage break, he left for the Ardennes with his speed and confidence restored. Chris Harper added a top-five finish on the last stage to Bolzano.

Sophie Wright delivered the women's elite victory for the Ribble Outliers privateer outfit, attacking her breakaway companions in the Mercantour climbs and soloing to the line nearly eight minutes clear. A standout climbing performance on one of the harder courses on the World Series calendar.

Jenson Young was the best of the rest behind Pöstlberger's solo, taking second at 1:18 and leading the chase home ahead of Vandeputte. A strong home-circuit result against an internationally stacked field.

Austrian Lukas Pöstlberger, best known for winning the 2017 Giro d'Italia's opening stage in his WorldTour days, confirmed his transformation into one of gravel's leading riders. Two weeks after winning The Traka 200 he dominated The Gralloch's relentless Galloway course, attacking on the climbs and soloing to a maiden Gralloch UCI title more than a minute clear.

The Japanese-registered team took a place on the final GC podium through Kamiel Bonneu, who climbed consistently across both summit finishes to finish third overall at +59s. He was never quite at the level of the Berwick-Sosa duel up front, but he comfortably outlasted the rest of the GC field on the decisive mountain days — a strong, reliable week that delivered the team a podium.

The lone team to break Red Bull's grip on the sprints. Dušan Rajović timed his finish perfectly on the restart after the stage 2 neutralisation, coming past race leader Pithie to take a standout victory in Ormož — one of the Serbian sprinter's best wins of the season and the only stage of the race's opening phase not claimed by Red Bull.

Geerike Schreurs added a second Gralloch title to her 2024 win, becoming the first rider to win the race twice. She controlled the women's race through the forest sectors but had to dig deep at the finish, holding off a fast-closing Karolina Migoń by just two seconds — a measure of how consistently she performs across the global gravel circuit.

A Continental-level team took the biggest domestic prize of the summer. Patrick Eddy, a former WorldTour and Picnic PostNL rider riding at Conti level in 2026, read the finale perfectly — sitting in the Plapp-led quartet that chased down Durbridge, then out-kicking Plapp two-up. It is the kind of result that re-frames a rider's season and gives a small team a year in the green-and-gold.

Team Polti VisitMalta's headline came on the queen stage, where Adrián Benito was the best of the rest behind Söderqvist, taking second on the day at +0:32 on the Pécs climbs — the only rider able to get within striking distance of the eventual overall winner on the decisive afternoon.

World gravel champion Lorena Wiebes successfully defended her Marly Grav title in front of a home crowd, winning the seven-up sprint in Valkenburg in the rainbow jersey. After surviving the decisive split on the Muur van Banholt with a strong group, she trusted her finishing speed and opened the sprint herself, holding off Hartog and Pluimers. A clean confirmation of her status on gravel as well as the road.

The Japanese-Italian development team delivered the race's feel-good story. Tommaso Dati won the opening stage in Innsbruck with a tactical masterclass, beating Pidcock and the WorldTour names from the draft, took the first leader's jersey, and held the points classification to the finish — a statement that Ukyo's talent pipeline can beat the biggest teams on the road.

The Malaysian Continental squad were the week's most persistent animators. Zhe Yie Kee was in the early breakaways and intermediate-sprint skirmishes often enough to win the Most Active (combativity) classification, while Juan Pedro Lozano spent the final stage up the road in the day's break and collected intermediate sprints. No result on GC or in a stage, but the team made itself the race's most visible aggressor.

The French ProTeam placed both of its GC cards in the top five, Jordan Jegat fourth and Nicolas Breuillard fifth, with Breuillard taking third on the Kıran summit and Jegat third on the Feslikan queen stage. They were aggressive on every climbing day and consistently in the GC mix without ever quite threatening the podium positions — two top-fives the reward for an all-in mountain campaign.

UAE Team ADQ were the most aggressive GC outfit and put three riders in the move that decided the race, taking second (Mavi Garcia) and third (Paula Blasi) overall plus the Queen of the Mountains jersey through Blasi. But with a three-to-one numerical advantage over Rüegg into Campbelltown they failed to convert: by Blasi's own admission the riders 'misunderstood each other' inside the final 500 m and let the Swiss rider sprint clear.

The home WorldTour team delivered the perfect result, controlling the queen stage and launching Elisa Longo Borghini to a Jebel Hafeet stage win and the overall — her third UAE Tour Women title. Lara Gillespie added two sprint second places on the flat stages, giving the team both a GC card and a fast finisher across the week.

UAE Team ADQ kept Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini in the front group over the Garbí and into Valencia, and the young Italian took fourth in the bunch sprint behind Lippert. A solid opening result on a punchy course, confirming her as one of the squad's emerging one-day cards alongside her spring ambitions.

UAE Team ADQ rode consistently with Maeva Squiban, who was best of the rest behind Vollering: second on Stage 1, in the leading group on Stage 4, and second overall at +1:02. Eleonora Gasparrini added points-classification presence as a sprinting card, giving the team both a GC and a fast finisher across the week.

Karlijn Swinkels led UAE Team ADQ home in sixth, in the front chase group that contested the minor placings into Ninove. A solid collective ride on a day defined by the Vollering-Niewiadoma escape.

Elisa Longo Borghini was the most aggressive rider in the finale — her attack on Le Tolfe triggered Vollering's chase-ending puncture, and she went toe-to-toe with Niewiadoma and Chabbey on Colle Pinzuto and the final Le Tolfe. She led the bunch into the decisive last corner but couldn't hold the inside line, fading to fourth at +0:03. Włodarczyk's early move with Chabbey also kept UAE in the front of the race throughout.

With the win gone up the road, UAE Team ADQ's focus shifted to the bunch sprint for the minor placings, and Megan Jastrab delivered, taking third on her debut spring for her new team by winning the sprint from the reduced peloton eleven seconds behind the leaders. A podium that confirmed her speed even if the race had been decided ahead of her by Wiebes's late move.

UAE Team ADQ placed two riders in the winning quintet and came away with a home podium. Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini followed the Poggio selection and held third on the Via Roma, while Dominika Włodarczyk rode an unselfish finale — emptying herself on the front to keep the break clear and protect Gasparrini before taking fifth herself. Numbers in the decisive move turned into a podium, even if the win was beyond them.

UAE Team ADQ were the most numerically present squad in the decisive selection, placing both Karlijn Swinkels (third) and Eleonora Gasparrini (fifth) in the leading group, with Lara Gillespie also up the road in the chase before finishing tenth. Three riders inside the top ten of a WorldTour Classic is a strong collective result, even if their two cards in the final move couldn't out-fox Wiebes. With the move made by Wiebes herself rather than by them, the team was reacting rather than dictating in the closing kilometres.

UAE Team ADQ took on the bulk of the chasing responsibility behind the leading duo but never quite organised enough cohesion to bring them back, the front trio holding seven seconds at the line. Karlijn Swinkels was the team's best finisher in ninth from that front chase — a busy, front-of-race ride that came up just short of the podium fight.

UAE Team ADQ produced the strongest collective ride of the day, placing Karlijn Swinkels (6th), Silvia Persico (7th) and Elisa Longo Borghini (8th) all inside the top eight from the first chasing group. Without a rider able to follow Vollering's Kwaremont move, the numbers translated into placings rather than a podium, but it underlined the squad's classics depth.

UAE Team ADQ were the most consistent squad behind the big two, putting Megan Jastrab into fifth (level on time with Kopecky at 1:30) and Lara Gillespie into eighth in the chase group at 2:20. Two riders inside the top eight of a Monument is a genuinely strong team result, even if neither was ever a factor for the win once the Mons-en-Pévèle move went clear. A day that confirmed the team's growing depth on the cobbles rather than a missed chance at victory.

A statement Ardennes opener for UAE Team ADQ. Paula Blasi, just 23, turned a two-up move on the penultimate Cauberg into a long-range solo and held off the favourites for the biggest win of her career, while team-mate Karlijn Swinkels rounded out a superb day with sixth in the chase sprint. It was the launchpad for a purple patch that continued days later when Blasi took third at La Flèche Wallonne, confirming UAE Team ADQ as one of the in-form squads of the spring classics.

Days after winning Amstel Gold Race, Paula Blasi rounded out the podium at three seconds, confirming UAE Team ADQ as one of the in-form squads of the Ardennes. The Spaniard's blend of punch and consistency made her the best of the chasers behind the two leaders on the Mur.

Paula Blasi was UAE Team ADQ's standout, climbing to fifth on the day at 1:48. A solid Ardennes result that put the Spaniard among the best of the riders behind the elite chase trio.

The race of the team's life. Paula Blasi was not the pre-race favourite, but UAE Team ADQ backed her through the flat stages and unleashed her on the Asturian mountains. After clinging to Van der Breggen at Les Praeres to keep the deficit at 18 seconds, Blasi produced a perfectly judged Angliru attack to win the overall by 24 seconds and the mountains classification. A breakthrough Grand Tour title for the 23-year-old and a landmark result for the squad, which also finished second in the team classification.

UAE Team ADQ left without the overall but with the weekend's breakout rider. Dominika Włodarczyk took her first Women's WorldTour victory on stage 2 from a daring late two-up move with van Anrooij, then doubled up in Donostia after the race split on the climbs — a far harder win than a bunch kick. Two stages from three, plus the points-classification runner-up spot, made her one of the defining riders of the race even without yellow.

UAE Team ADQ built the race around Elisa Longo Borghini and finished it in style. The Italian champion was a constant aggressor — instigating the winning Stage 7 move that set up Gery, then attacking on Stage 9's Montoso and winning the final-stage sprint in Saluzzo. She finished 4th overall at +2:44, supported by Silvia Persico's climbing work and Lara Gillespie's sprinting (a Stage 7 bunch-sprint win behind the breakaway). A satisfying home Giro for the squad.

A total domination of the race. Paula Blasi's Tourmalet solo on Stage 2 won the stage, the overall and the climber's classification in one move, and the squad converted its depth into a GC 1-2 with Dominika Włodarczyk second at 1:57. Federica Venturelli added the points classification (and a Stage 1 sprint second), making UAE Team ADQ the clear best team of the week — the only mountain stage decided everything and they owned it.

Elisa Longo Borghini was the aggressor of the first half, soloing to the stage 2 win in Locarno and wearing yellow through stages 2 and 3. She lost the lead only to a time-trial specialist on stage 4, limiting her ITT damage to 1:04 to sit second at just 10 seconds. The final mountain stage is set up perfectly for her to try to win the race back.

Marta Lach took third in the sprint, giving the dominant women's super-team a podium on the flat Tanunda circuit through the in-form Polish classics rider.

SD Worx owned the flat half of the race. Lorena Wiebes swept all three sprint stages and wore the red leader's jersey from day one until the summit finish, ultimately securing the green points jersey. The only thing missing was a GC card for the mountain, where the lead inevitably changed hands.

SD Worx-Protime spent the early race policing the crosswinds and the first break, but were unable to follow the two leaders over the Muur. Dutch champion Lorena Wiebes salvaged the day by winning the sprint of the reduced chase group for third at 21 seconds, the best result available once Vollering and Niewiadoma were gone.

SD Worx controlled the race around its top favourite and was rewarded with the win, though by an unusual route. Rather than deliver Lorena Wiebes to a bunch sprint, the team backed her decision to attack over the Zavelberg, a gamble that paid off when only Fleur Moors could follow and Wiebes won the resulting two-up sprint. The squad's depth showed too: Marta Lach was prominent in the late attacking, going clear briefly with Anneke Dijkstra, and recovered to take fifth from the chase. A clean, dominant team performance on a day that suited them.

SD Worx controlled the bulk of the race for a sprint, reeling in the break ahead of the Cipressa, but their day was ultimately made by Kopecky's race-craft rather than a leadout. Briefly distanced on the Cipressa, she fought back, made the Poggio selection off Pieterse's move, and timed the Via Roma sprint perfectly for her biggest win of the young season. Lorena Wiebes, caught behind the Poggio split, salvaged sixth as the best of the chase — a near-perfect outcome with the team's puncheur winning where the pure sprinter couldn't follow.

Defending champion Lorena Wiebes came in as the marked favourite but SD Worx could not build a sprint train in the crosswind chaos. Wiebes was left isolated and boxed in, unable to contest the finish and salvaging only 9th — a rare off-day for the sport's most reliable sprint operation.

SD Worx came to Wevelgem with the strongest card in the race and played it perfectly. Lorena Wiebes was active all day — Marta Lach gave the team a body in the big mid-race chase group — and rather than risk a passive sprint Wiebes detonated the race herself on the final Kemmelberg, taking only the strongest four with her. That she could then win the five-up sprint after doing the climbing work, and from the front, was the definitive statement of the day. Femke Markus mopped up ninth in the chase. A third consecutive win at this race confirms it as Wiebes' personal property.

Despite having multiple riders in the front group, SD Worx raced more cautiously than usual and never fully committed to closing the winning move, a passivity that helped the leaders escape. Lotte Kopecky was active in the mid-race attacks but ended up boxed in the chase group, finishing twelfth at seven seconds — a quiet day by the squad's standards heading into the bigger cobbled targets.

The three-time champion's home Monument unravelled. Lorena Wiebes, the sprint card, was caught in two crashes and abandoned, leaving Lotte Kopecky to ride the finale without her usual firepower around her. Kopecky made the chase group but had no answer to Vollering and won the sprint for fourth; Mischa Bredewold backed her up in ninth. For a team that had won this race three times in four years, fourth was a disappointment.

SD Worx's day went wrong at the one moment that mattered. When Ferrand-Prévot detonated the race after Mons-en-Pévèle, neither Lotte Kopecky nor Lorena Wiebes was in the front group — only Blanka Vas made the quartet, and she was dropped 20-odd km later, leaving the team with nobody up the road in the finale. Kopecky rode a strong chase to take fourth at 1:30 and Wiebes mopped up sixth, but for a team built to win the biggest one-day races, being on the wrong side of the decisive selection is the story. A podium-less Roubaix that came down to positioning, not legs.

Anna van der Breggen, the inaugural women's Amstel winner in 2017, was again in the front group on the Cauberg and finished ninth at 43 seconds, but SD Worx-Protime never controlled the race the way the squad usually does. Lorena Wiebes was distanced on a Cauberg passage as the relentless pace thinned the bunch, leaving the team without a podium card on a finish that favoured the long-range move.

Anna van der Breggen, a multiple former Flèche Wallonne winner, was again competitive on the Mur de Huy and took fifth at eleven seconds for SD Worx-Protime. A reminder of her enduring climbing punch, if no longer quite enough to win the wall outright against an in-form Vollering.

SD Worx-Protime set early tempo to protect Anna van der Breggen, who timed her late bridge across to the chase group inside 10 km and immediately forced the pace, dropping Holmgren. It earned her fourth on the day, just off the podium and unable to close on a long-gone Vollering.

By the numbers a dominant week — three stage wins (Kopecky in Antas de Ulla, Bredewold in Astorga off Kopecky's lead-out), the points jersey for Kopecky, the team classification, and the red jersey for most of the second half through Anna van der Breggen. But the one prize that mattered most slipped away: Van der Breggen won Les Praeres and led by 18 seconds, only to crack on the Angliru and lose the overall by 24 seconds. A brilliant race that ended in heartbreak.

SD Worx-Protime got exactly the leader-defence they came for. Mischa Bredewold, twice a runner-up here, converted at last: she won the brutal rain-soaked opener from a five-up sprint, defended through the stage 2 ambush by tracking the leaders' group home in second, then weathered the only genuine scare of the week when Mendizorrotz dropped her on the final day. Her chase back into the front group sealed a 21-second overall win, and her week-long consistency also delivered the points classification with 91 points. A model front-running stage-race ride rather than a one-day blow-out.

SD Worx-Protime dominated the opening half of the race, winning all three of the stages covered here: Wiebes' two bunch sprints plus Bredewold's late attack on the hilly Stage 3. They controlled every flat day from the front, kept Wiebes in the purple jersey throughout, and turned the GC's top two into an SD Worx 1-2 going into the mountains. The one thing the formula couldn't deliver was the summit-finish overall on the uncovered queen stage, where the pure climbers took over.

A near-perfect collective display. SD Worx-Protime were the most active team all day — Femke Markus got into the day's first move, crashed and chased back, then attacked again from the reduced front group with 26 km to go to ride clear solo. With the win secured, her teammates sat on and disrupted the chase, and when the bunch arrived around a minute and a half down, Marta Lach and Femke Gerritse sprinted to second and third for a clean 1-2-3. For Markus it was a rare and well-earned victory — her second as a professional and first in four years.

SD Worx looked to have won the Giro through Anna van der Breggen, whose stunning Nevegal time trial took pink and whose defence held through a Stage 7 crash and the shortened Finestre stage. But the team could not protect her on Stage 9: helper Valentina Cavallar was distanced on the Montoso, leaving van der Breggen isolated when Vollering attacked on the final climb. She finished 3rd overall — a bitter end to a race she led from Stage 4 to the last day. Their early-race story was overshadowed by Lorena Wiebes's Stage 1 disqualification for an underweight bike.

Visma raced aggressively throughout, helping force selections on the hard middle stage, and were rewarded with Sarah Van Dam in the decisive final-stage group. Isolated against the UAE numbers on the run-in, she came home fifth overall — a solid GC marker to open the season for the Canadian.

With the road race scrapped, Martina Fidanza delivered Visma | Lease a Bike's first win of 2026 in the substitute Cadel's Criterium, finding her lead-out in the final 500m of a chaotic sprint to beat two SD Worx-Protime riders. The result carries no UCI points but opened the team's account for the year.

Sarah Van Dam was caught in a crash in the bunch with a lap to go yet still recovered into the front group to take 6th, with Rosita Reijnhout 9th — a resilient ride from the pair.

An aggressive, all-rounder week for Visma. Femke de Vries took third overall on Jebel Hafeet at +0:17, while 21-year-old Nienke Veenhoven was third on the stage 2 sprint, giving the team a GC podium and a fast-finish result across both halves of the race.

Team Visma's 19-year-old Viktória Chladoňová impressed with third on the opening stage and a spell in the white youth jersey, the standout result for the squad in a race where she briefly sat third overall before the final day reshuffled the gaps.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's race ended on Le Tolfe with a mechanical and a long wait for assistance, removing one of the strongest gravel riders in the field. Marianne Vos salvaged the day, making the front group of eight and finishing seventh at +0:34 — a steady, experienced ride from a team whose lead card had already been knocked out by bad luck.

Nienke Veenhoven survived the echelons and the hail to take third from the bunch sprint, a solid podium for Visma's developing sprint card on a day that rewarded riders who stayed attentive in the crosswinds.

Visma's day belonged to Lieke Nooijen, who read the leaders' hesitation inside the final kilometre and launched a late bridge from the chase that nearly reached Reusser and Vollering. She fell just short as the duo relaunched, but the surge earned a strong podium third and very nearly turned the race on its head — a standout result for the 24-year-old.

Ferrand-Prévot was the strongest of the pursuers and the only rider to limit Vollering's damage, recovering after being briefly dropped by Pieterse on the Paterberg and then winning the two-up sprint for second in the final 500 m. It was a repeat of her 2025 runner-up finish — confirmation of her standing among the Ronde's very best, still chasing the win.

Visma did everything a two-up advantage should allow and still lost. Ferrand-Prévot lit the decisive move at Mons-en-Pévèle and then played the perfect foil — chasing back every time Koch attacked so Vos never had to work, then leading out the sprint on the velodrome. Vos, racing only days after the death of her father, sat the wheels exactly as planned and came to the line as the supposedly faster sprinter. But Koch held her line and the textbook finish came up 0.06 short. The most painful kind of defeat: numerically dominant, tactically disciplined, beaten by one rider who simply would not be neutralised.

Sarah Van Dam was Visma's best on the day with seventh in the chase sprint at 43 seconds. Two-time former winner Marianne Vos briefly cracked on the Geulhemmerberg but fought back into contention when the tempo eased — a gritty ride that kept the team in the front group without producing a result on the Cauberg.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was Visma | Lease a Bike's best on the day, seventh at twenty-eight seconds on the Mur de Huy. A respectable Ardennes outing for the road-and-MTB all-rounder, just outside the riders fighting for the podium on the steepest section.

A superb Vuelta built around 21-year-old Marion Bunel, who climbed with the very best in Asturias, finished third overall and won the best young rider's white jersey. Sarah Van Dam added consistent placings on the flatter stages, including third in A Coruña. For a young roster, a podium and a classification jersey at a Grand Tour was an outstanding return.

Visma's best GC result came from young climber Femke de Vries, who quietly rode into 6th overall at +5:07 with steady performances on the mountain stages (5th on both Stage 8 and Stage 9). With no win to show for the race, it was nonetheless a solid Grand Tour from a developing rider, with Nienke Veenhoven adding top-10 sprint placings on the flat days.

Nienke Veenhoven delivered a strong third place for Visma, holding her line in a fast bunch finish to round out the podium behind the two established sprinters.

Visma struck first: Femke de Vries took her maiden professional win and the opening yellow jersey in Sondrio, and also led the mountains classification. When De Vries faded on stage 2, Sarah Van Dam salvaged second on the day by staying on course amid the finale chaos, and the pair sit fourth and fifth on GC — a productive, opportunistic week.

FDJ owned the opening two days, with Ally Wollaston winning both Stage 1 and Stage 2 from uphill sprints and Amber Kraak driving the chase to defend the ochre jersey. The plan held until the Corkscrew on the final stage, where Wollaston was dropped and the GC slipped away — but two WorldTour wins and the retained points classification made it a strong week regardless.

A near-perfect season opener for FDJ-SUEZ built entirely around Demi Vollering. The team softened the Alt de Barx on Stage 1 to launch her decisive solo, defended the jersey on the flat Stage 2, and saw the toughest test removed when the queen stage was cancelled. Vollering closed it out herself with the Stage 4 group sprint — two stage wins and the overall, the kind of dominant opening week the squad wanted from its marquee signing.

FDJ United - SUEZ controlled the decisive phase and turned it into a victory. After Elise Chabbey animated the mid-race break, the team massed at the front for the Muur, where German champion Franziska Koch drove the tempo that blew the race apart and sprang Demi Vollering clear with Niewiadoma. Vollering took the two-up sprint for her first Omloop, and the depth showed with Koch fifth and Juliette Berthet eleventh. A near-perfect season opener.

The strongest team on the day by numbers, with Vollering, Chabbey, Curinier, Koch and Kraak all in the early lead group. When Vollering's race fell apart with a Le Tolfe puncture, the depth paid off anyway: Chabbey attacked early to put a card up the road, regrouped into the front eight, and won the sprint, while Franziska Koch covered moves and held third. A two-on-the-podium result built on numbers and a willingness to race aggressively rather than ride for a single protected leader.

FDJ United-SUEZ rode an aggressive, well-placed race. Elise Chabbey was the team's climber in the front five and took fourth, while Vittoria Guazzini led the chase group home for sixth. Two riders inside the top six on a hilly cobbled finale is a solid day's work, but neither could turn the five-up finale into a podium against Wiebes, Moors and Swinkels.

Vollering was arguably the most active rider in the finale — first to light up the race on the Eikenberg, then the one to bridge to Reusser's flat attack and commit to the winning duo. She looked well placed in the two-up sprint but was edged on the line, denied by the smallest of margins. Franziska Koch added depth in eighth from the chase. A near-miss that confirmed FDJ's status at the sharp end of the cobbled spring without the win.

Vollering's first season back at the Ronde for FDJ delivered the win she had never managed here, with a committed long-range solo from the foot of the final Oude Kwaremont rather than a finale poker game. The squad's depth showed across the result sheet — Franziska Koch took tenth and Strade Bianche winner Elise Chabbey was inside the top fifteen — but the day was about a single, decisive acceleration that nobody could answer.

FDJ won the Hell of the North off the back of a single rider riding above herself. Franziska Koch — the German national champion who had spent the spring as a domestique for Demi Vollering — was the only non-Visma rider in the four-up move at Mons-en-Pévèle, then the only rider left at all once Vas was dropped. One against two, she refused to be controlled: strongest on the cobbles, repeatedly forcing Ferrand-Prévot to chase, and ice-cold in the velodrome where she held her line against Vos' lead-out. Coming a week after FDJ's win at the women's Tour of Flanders, it capped a banner cobbled spring for the squad and announced Koch as a Classics winner in her own right, not just a luxury helper.

Demi Vollering, the 2023 Amstel champion and the pre-race favourite on the back of a dominant spring, was marked into a reactive role and could only follow Niewiadoma's chase on the final climb. Beaten to second in the sprint, she took third at 27 seconds — a rare off-key classics result that she answered emphatically three days later with victory at La Flèche Wallonne.

FDJ United - SUEZ delivered Demi Vollering to the foot of the final Mur de Huy with the group still together, and she did the rest herself — going early, grinding the front group apart and opening the decisive gap on the steepest ramp. It was her second Flèche Wallonne (after 2023) and the opening leg of an Ardennes double she would complete with a record third Liège-Bastogne-Liège four days later. The win extended an extraordinary spring that also included Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Tour of Flanders.

FDJ United - SUEZ controlled the front into La Redoute and unleashed Demi Vollering for a 35 km solo that turned the Ardennes finale into a procession. It crowned an extraordinary spring for the team and rider — Vollering's fourth one-day win of the season after Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the Tour of Flanders and Flèche Wallonne — and made her the outright record holder at Liège. The depth showed too, with Elise Chabbey (7th) and Juliette Berthet (9th) both in the top ten.

FDJ raced aggressively all week. Franziska Koch held the red jersey after stage 2 and was a fixture in the sprints, while Juliette Berthet timed her form for the Angliru, climbing to third on the queen stage to finish fifth overall — the team's best GC placing. Évita Muzic backed up the GC effort with a string of high finishes. No win, but a constant presence at the front.

FDJ United-SUEZ were the strongest collective unit of the race, winning the team classification by more than nine minutes after placing Lauren Dickson third overall and both Évita Muzic and Juliette Berthet inside the GC top ten. Their depth told on the final stage, where they put multiple riders in the front group — Dickson and Muzic both made the stage 3 podium behind Włodarczyk. A podium plus the team prize is a strong return.

FDJ United-Suez played both ends: Ally Wollaston sprinted to third on Stage 2 and top-10 on Stage 1, while GC leader Évita Muzic stayed safe in the front groups (10th on Stage 3) waiting for the climbing finale. Muzic's race peaked beyond this coverage with second overall on the queen stage.

The defining squad of the race, even from a deficit. FDJ raced from behind for eight stages, using Lauren Dickson as a destroyer in the breakaways (Stage 5, Stage 9) and 20-year-old Célia Gery both as a finisher — she won Stage 7 — and a climbing helper. The whole plan was built around launching Vollering on the steepest terrain. It paid off twice: a first-ever Giro stage win at Santo Stefano di Cadore, the queen-stage win on the Finestre, and the final-day ambush that overturned van der Breggen's lead. Vollering left with the maglia rosa, the mountains jersey, and the women's Grand Tour Triple Crown.

Facing a Liv squad that controlled the day, Neve Bradbury was the strongest non-Liv rider — she made the decisive chase but was beaten to silver in the sprint by Roseman-Gannon and settled for bronze. Young teammate Emily Dixon took sixth and the U23 silver behind Coupland, a solid championship for the team in numbers it could not match.

Canyon-SRAM won the team classification thanks to depth across the whole race — Kasia Niewiadoma fifth overall as the GC leader, plus sprint podiums from Chiara Consonni (2nd, stage 2) and Zoe Bäckstedt (3rd, stage 1). A strong collective early-season showing.

Antonia Niedermaier was the only rider able to follow Vollering's first Barx acceleration on Stage 1 and backed it up in the Stage 4 lead group to finish fourth overall (+1:12). A strong GC ride for Canyon//SRAM that fell just short of the podium when the mountains that might have suited her were cancelled.

Kasia Niewiadoma was the only rider able to go with the FDJ-fuelled selection on the Muur, reportedly setting the fastest time up the climb on the day, and she made the winning two-up move with Vollering. She cooperated to the line but came up short in the sprint, taking a strong second on a cobbled course that suits the pure classics riders more than her. A confident classics opener for the Pole.

Kasia Niewiadoma crashed earlier in the race yet made every selection, bridged to the Longo Borghini move on the final Le Tolfe, and was the rider Chabbey had to come around in the sprint. Second by the width of the Piazza del Campo — a strong return on a day that punished the slightest misfortune, but ultimately the runner-up.

Kasia Niewiadoma was among the most aggressive riders on the Cipressa, her pull splitting the bunch, but her race ended in the heavy crash on the descent that also caught Kim Le Court. With their lead aggressor down, the team salvaged tenth through Chiara Consonni out of the chasing bunch sprint — a frustrating day undone by misfortune on the descent.

Kasia Niewiadoma, a former Amstel winner, was the most active of the favourites, opening the chase on the final Cauberg and then out-sprinting Demi Vollering for second. She could not bridge to Blasi's long-range move, but salvaged the best possible result behind it and signalled strong form heading into the rest of the Ardennes block.

Kasia Niewiadoma was in the mix on the final Mur de Huy and crossed the line fourth at six seconds, marking the decisive moves and salvaging a strong placing on a finish that rarely suits her better than the steeper, longer Ardennes climbs. A solid building block ahead of Liège.

Kasia Niewiadoma marked the dangerous moves and stayed with the lead chase group all the way to Liège, taking third in the sprint behind Pieterse. A composed, consistent Ardennes ride that delivered a WorldTour podium against an in-form Vollering.

Antonia Niedermaier carried CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto's GC hopes, riding aggressively across all three days to finish fifth overall at 29 seconds and second in the mountains classification. A solid top-five for the young German on a parcours that suited punchy climbers, even if a win or podium stayed out of reach.

Canyon//SRAM's Chiara Consonni was the closest challenger to Wiebes on the sprint days, second on Stage 1 and fifth on Stage 2, briefly sitting second on GC behind the SD Worx leader before the hilly day reshuffled the order.

Antonia Niedermaier rode the most aggressive GC race of anyone on the final day. After sitting in the top group all week, she attacked over the Montoso on Stage 9 with Longo Borghini and Fisher-Black, building enough of a gap to ride briefly into virtual pink before Vollering bridged across. She held on for 2nd overall at +0:30 — CANYON//SRAM's headline result of the race — with Chiara Consonni adding consistent top-10 sprint placings on the flat stages.

Canyon//SRAM converted on the one bunch-sprint day, organising the lead-out for Zoe Bäckstedt to win stage 3 in Bad Ragaz by several lengths — her ninth professional victory. Bäckstedt also leads the points classification and was runner-up in the time trial, while Kasia Niewiadoma carries the team's GC hopes into the mountain finale from sixth at 1:49.

Noemi Rüegg was the closest challenger to the winner, sprinting to second from the front group. After a strong Australian summer for the Swiss rider, it was another podium to add to her early-season tally even if the top step stayed out of reach.

Nina Berton spent a long spell in the day's main breakaway and then recovered to finish ninth in the chase group, an aggressive and rewarded ride for EF Education-Oatly.

Magdeleine Vallieres survived the carnage to make the decisive eight-rider group and sprint to fifth at +0:06, a strong Classics result from the Canadian. With Noemi Rüegg also in the mix just behind in 11th, EF came away with two riders inside the top eleven of a brutally selective edition.

Noemi Rüegg confirmed her sparkling early-season form by making the decisive Poggio quintet and finishing runner-up on the Via Roma, glued to Kopecky's wheel. A second straight strong Monument-level result for the Swiss, beaten only by one of the sport's best finishers — a podium that underlines her arrival as a one-day contender.

Noemi Rüegg was EF Education-Oatly's standout, hanging with the reduced front group over the closing climbs and taking fifth in the sprint for the minor placings at 43 seconds. A consistent hilly-classics ride from the in-form Swiss puncheur.

Magdeleine Vallieres was EF Education-Oatly's standout, climbing to sixth on the Mur at fourteen seconds. A high-quality Ardennes ride from the Canadian, who backed it up days later with eighth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

EF Education-Oatly placed two riders in the top ten — Magdeleine Vallieres (8th) and Axelle Dubau-Prévot (10th), both at 1:56 — in the group that contested the lower placings into Liège. No headline result, but strong collective depth on a hard Ardennes day.

The most successful stage-hunting team of the race. Noemi Rüegg won the rain-soaked opener and the first red jersey before a stage-2 crash ended her race, and Cédrine Kerbaol made up for it by stealing stage 3 in A Coruña with a perfectly timed late attack. Two wins from the first three days made for a flying start, even if the GC was never the target.

Cédrine Kerbaol has quietly assembled a strong week: third on the Sondrio opener, a solid time trial, and a hold on third overall at 1:20 along with the young rider classification lead. EF heads into the final mountain stage with a genuine podium and youth-jersey defence to manage.

Lidl - Trek's day belonged to 20-year-old Fleur Moors, the only rider quick and strong enough to react when Wiebes attacked over the Zavelberg. She earned her place in the two-up sprint but had no answer to the Dutch champion's finishing speed, taking a high-quality second place against the spring's fastest finisher. Clara Copponi added depth in eighth from the chasing group, a solid all-round showing for the team.

Elisa Balsamo was the strongest of the established sprinters on the day, surging late but running out of road to catch Lloyd. A clean second place that confirmed her form, but a missed win against a surprise opponent.

Lidl-Trek got the standout young ride of the day from 20-year-old Fleur Moors, who was strong enough to follow Wiebes' Kemmelberg acceleration into the five and then pushed her hard in the sprint, losing by only a wheel. Lauretta Hanson had earlier done the legwork in the seven-rider chase group. No win, but a genuine sign of a future Classics contender and the best of the rest behind the world's top sprinter.

Lidl-Trek's best hope of disrupting the front was Lucinda Brand, the cobbles and cyclocross specialist, who bridged across to the Kopecky/Jastrab chase group and looked the rider most likely to drag a pursuit back into contention. Her race ended on the Carrefour de l'Arbre when she crashed after contact with a spectator — the kind of bad luck that the Hell of the North dispenses without sentiment. She was classified tenth at 2:20; the result flatters a day that promised more before the fall.

Lidl - Trek placed two riders in the top ten on the Mur — Niamh Fisher-Black eighth at thirty-four seconds and the young Canadian Isabella Holmgren ninth at forty. No podium, but strong collective depth from a squad that animated the harder Ardennes finishes.

Isabella Holmgren was one of the riders who limited the damage on La Redoute and rode in the front chase group for most of the finale, but she was dropped when Van der Breggen lifted the pace inside 10 km and slipped to sixth. A promising Ardennes showing from the young Canadian.

Lidl-Trek raced aggressively without landing the headline result. Riejanne Markus was third on the opening stage and finished fourth overall at 22 seconds, while Shirin van Anrooij animated the race — making the stage 2 podium from the late move with Włodarczyk. Second in the team classification reflected the squad's strength in depth, but they finished just short of a stage win or the overall podium.

Lidl-Trek mixed sprinting and youth ambitions: Elisa Balsamo took second on Stage 2, while Shirin van Anrooij rode into the lead group on Stage 3 (+25" on GC) en route to the youth classification she would secure on the queen stage. Amanda Spratt added a veteran climbing presence in the front group.

Lidl - Trek owned the flat days and the secondary classifications. Elisa Balsamo won four stages (1 awarded after Wiebes's DQ, plus 2, 3 and 6 on the road) and the points jersey; Niamh Fisher-Black climbed to 5th overall and 2nd on the final stage; and 21-year-old Isabella Holmgren took the best-young-rider white jersey and finished 7th overall after a Stage 8 podium on the Finestre. The squad also won the teams classification — a hugely productive Giro short only of the maglia rosa.

Movistar rode a textbook two-pronged finale on a course they clearly relished. They drove the Garbí selection to strip out the sprinters, then set a high tempo to wear down the survivors — and when Liane Lippert found a gap, Sara Martín and company immediately shut down their own attacks to commit behind her. Lippert's late solo and the team's blocking numbers in the front group did the rest, while 19-year-old Cat Ferguson capped a perfect day by taking third in the sprint behind. It made Movistar the only women's team to win the VCV Féminas twice, after Floortje Mackaij's 2023 victory, also in Movistar colours.

Movistar took the only stage Vollering didn't, with 19-year-old Cat Ferguson winning the Stage 2 sprint in Vila-Real — a statement result for one of the team's brightest young talents. On the final day Liane Lippert made the lead group and sprinted to second behind Vollering, the finish bonus lifting her on GC. Two cards, two highlights, on either end of the age scale.

Nineteen-year-old British talent Cat Ferguson was Movistar's standout, surviving the Muur selection in the chase group and taking fourth in the bunch sprint behind Wiebes. A high-class opening-weekend ride for one of the sport's most promising young classics riders.

Movistar's women's project landed its headline spring result through 19-year-old neo-pro Carys Lloyd, who timed a long sprint to perfection on a chaotic, wind-and-hail-battered day. A statement first WorldTour victory from a teenager — exactly the kind of emerging-talent breakthrough the team has been building toward.

Movistar produced the day's standout collective ride. Marlen Reusser timed the winning move perfectly, attacking on the flat in the closing kilometres and then holding her nerve to edge Vollering in a photo finish — the kind of power-rider's victory that had marked her into one of the spring's form riders. Behind, 19-year-old Cat Ferguson took sixth from the front chase, underlining a team firing on multiple fronts. The win would prove bittersweet: three days later Reusser crashed out of the Ronde with a fractured lumbar vertebra.

Reusser arrived as a genuine favourite on the back of a Dwars door Vlaanderen win three days earlier, then saw her Ronde end in the pile-up before the Koppenberg with a fractured lumbar vertebra. It was a brutal blow to a rider in the form of her life, ruling her out of the rest of the cobbled block.

Movistar set up the finish for Cat Ferguson on a parcours that suited her perfectly — selective enough to shed the pure sprinters, but coming back together for a fast finish she could win from the front. The 20-year-old delivered, becoming the first two-time winner of the Navarra Women's Elite Classic and adding another marquee one-day result to a season built around the spring classics and a debut Giro d'Italia Women.

Movistar's Giro was a story of what might have been. Marlen Reusser was 2nd in the Nevegal time trial and sat 2nd overall after Stage 4, but faded on the high mountains — dropped on Stage 8's Finestre and again on Stage 9's Montoso — to finish well down on GC. The team also lost sprinter Cat Ferguson to an abandon after the crash-marred Stage 1. Reusser's TT remained the squad's highlight in a race that slipped away on the steepest climbs.

Movistar built its week around the Aarburg time trial, and Marlen Reusser delivered. After keeping her losses minimal on the punchy opening stages — and recovering from an off-course error in Locarno — the Swiss specialist won the stage 4 ITT on home roads by 11 seconds to seize the overall lead by 10 seconds. The team now has to defend a slim margin against the climbers on the final mountain stage.

Kim Le Court-Pienaar climbed to fourth overall at +1:07 on Jebel Hafeet, the team's best result of the week and a solid early-season GC marker ahead of her spring classics campaign.

With Movistar holding the front of the race and Lippert up the road, AG Insurance-Soudal's Shari Bossuyt was left to race for the best of the rest. She delivered, winning the gallop of the chasing group for second at six seconds — a strong early-season marker even if the win was beyond reach once Movistar committed to their solo move.

Shari Bossuyt was the home team's best, taking seventh from the chase-group sprint. A respectable opening-weekend result for the Belgian squad on its own roads.

AG Insurance - Soudal placed Ilse Pluimers fourth, narrowly beaten in the sprint for third and finishing just twelve seconds down on the winner. A near-miss on home Belgian roads that underlined the team's strength in the reduced front group, without quite producing a podium.

Shari Bossuyt won the stage 2 sprint in San Cibrao das Viñas, and Urška Žigart delivered a solid GC campaign to finish sixth overall in Asturias. A productive week combining a stage win with a top-six placing on the general classification.

AG Insurance-Soudal's Mireia Benito was the best non-SD Worx rider on the decisive hilly stage, second to Bredewold and into the GC top three (+7") after Stage 3. With Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio also in the front group, the team had two climbing cards positioned for the summit finish to come.

Present at the front through the selective gravel sectors, AG Insurance-Soudal could not match SD Worx-Protime's numbers in the finale. Letizia Borghesi was the best of the chasers, leading the reduced group home for fourth at 1m23s — the top non-SD Worx finisher, but unable to prevent the podium sweep.

A perfect day for Fenix-Premier Tech: Puck Pieterse took her first World Cup win of the season with a fourth-lap acceleration, and teammate Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado moved up to second when Fouquenet punctured, completing a team one-two. The result confirmed Pieterse — primarily a road and mountain-bike talent — as the fastest woman in the field on the day, and gave the team the top of the podium in the penultimate round of the series.

Puck Pieterse was the rider who blew the race apart, attacking inside the final kilometre of the Poggio to create the winning five. She led the sprint out on the Via Roma but, having done the damage on the climb, was passed and finished fourth at the same time. The animator of the finale without the reward — but a statement of strength on her Monument terrain.

Puck Pieterse turned her cobbled-classics promise into a Monument podium, getting into the day's decisive front split and even briefly distancing Ferrand-Prévot on the Paterberg. She led out the sprint for second but was passed by the more patient Ferrand-Prévot in the closing metres, settling for third — a major result for the young Dutch rider and her team.

Puck Pieterse was among the few able to follow Vollering's initial acceleration on La Redoute and led the chase thereafter, but the gap only grew. She salvaged the best possible outcome by winning the sprint for second 1:29 down — a strong Ardennes result for a rider still establishing herself on the road against the classics specialists.

Fenix-Premier Tech were the most consistent challengers to SD Worx-Protime. Yara Kastelijn was second on stage 1, stayed in every decisive group, and finished second overall just 21 seconds down while also winning the mountains classification with 33 points. For a ProTeam squad it was a standout result against the WorldTour establishment — built on presence and consistency rather than a single attack.

Within the three stages covered here Yara Kastelijn rode quietly into the front group on Stage 3 (8th at +25" on GC), saving herself for the Lagunas de Neila summit finish on the uncovered queen stage — where she would attack, win, and take both the overall and the QOM jersey for Fenix-Premier Tech.

Charlotte Kool's day looked compromised by a bike change with 11 km to go, but she fought back into the finale and produced the second-fastest sprint behind an in-form Wiebes. Second place that rewarded persistence on a nervy, weather-affected course.

A near-textbook team championship. Liv AlUla Jayco put Josie Talbot in the early break to force the chase, marked every threat from the bunch, then sent 20-year-old Mackenzie Coupland across in the finale — Talbot even waving her own teammate through up the road. Coupland soloed to the title in one of her first outings for the WorldTour team, with Ruby Roseman-Gannon completing a 1-2 by taking the sprint for silver. The squad's two Continental-team riders, Sophie Marr and Talia Appleton, rounded out the top eight.

The Australian outfit placed Mackenzie Coupland (4th) and Ella Wyllie (8th) in the decisive group, the best collective showing from a home team on the Geelong circuit.

Monica Trinca Colonel produced a career-level GC ride, animating the Jebel Hafeet finale with early attacks before riding clear of the chase for second on the stage and second overall at +0:16 — the strongest of the non-UAE climbers and a breakthrough podium for the team.

Letizia Paternoster timed the sprint for fourth to perfection, leading home the reduced front group at 43 seconds — the best of the riders who couldn't follow the podium trio on the Cauberg, and a strong day for Liv AlUla Jayco on a parcours that doesn't always suit a fast finisher.

A well-rounded week: Letizia Paternoster collected several sprint podiums on the flatter stages while Monica Trinca Colonel rode into the GC top 10, finishing seventh overall. No win, but consistent presence in both the bunch finishes and the mountains.

Ruby Roseman-Gannon was the best of the rest, surviving the selective walls in the reduced front group and taking second in the sprint behind Ferguson. A strong day on hilly terrain for the Australian, who timed her finish well but had no answer to the winner's long effort.

A double podium for Fenix-Premier Tech on a brutal, icy day. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado bounced back from an early crash to read the conditions best of all, pouncing on Lucinda Brand's late mistake to solo to a back-to-back Zonhoven victory. Teammate Puck Pieterse — the project's tracked rider here — animated the early race from the front before two falls on the slick course relegated her to a hard-fought third. Two of the three podium steps for the squad.

Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado was the only rider who could respond once Brand was gone, pulling clear of the rest of the chasers to take a solo second at +0:10. No answer to the winner, but comfortably the strongest of the pursuit.

Pieterse delivered the team's marquee result of the World Cup finale weekend, backing up her Maasmechelen win 24 hours earlier with victory at Hoogerheide. A front-running, attack-from-distance win on home Dutch terrain — exactly the form line the squad wanted heading into the following week's Worlds.

Puck Pieterse was in the elite group over the final Cauberg and took tenth at 43 seconds. The mountain-bike convert couldn't influence Blasi's escape but stayed at the sharp end of the race, a building block before her near-miss title defence at La Flèche Wallonne days later.

Defending champion Puck Pieterse was the only rider with the legs to respond to Vollering's long-range move, producing a storming late surge up the inside of the Mur that brought her right onto the winner's wheel at the line — same time, but second. A near miss in the title defence and confirmation that the mountain-bike convert is now a genuine Ardennes force on the road.

Josie Nelson was a consistent presence at the sharp end of the uphill sprints, finishing second on Stage 1 and third on Stage 2 behind Wollaston. Picnic PostNL came away without a win but with a fast, in-form rider near the front on both bunch-finish days.

Josie Nelson was the only rider to get anywhere near Wollaston in the sprint, taking second from the front group — a strong early-season marker for the 23-year-old Briton.

Eleonora Ciabocco, 21, won the white jersey for best young rider while finishing sixth overall at +1:25 — a standout U23 GC performance on the only mountain stage that marked her as one of the climbers to watch in 2026.

On their first appearance at the race, Picnic PostNL animated it from the gun. Megan Arens made the early break of six and was its last survivor in the merged front group, taking long pulls to keep it clear before the decisive wall. Mara Roldan bridged across in the counter-move but was distanced on the steepest climb as she works back from an injury-hit start to 2026. Pfeiffer Georgi was positioned into the reduced front group and produced the team's result with sixth in the sprint.

So nearly the winning team. Overall World Cup leader Lucinda Brand led much of the race and looked set to go clear, but her eagerness cost her — she veered into the fencing on lap five, lost the front and had to take a bike change, ceding the win to Alvarado before recovering to second at +0:23. Shirin van Anrooij added fifth. A strong day undone by a single moment on the ice.

A dominant team afternoon. Lucinda Brand did the headline work — a clean lap-two solo that delivered the win and locked up her second straight overall World Cup title — while teammates Shirin van Anrooij (6th) and Fleur Moors (7th) packed the chase behind. The depth underlined why Baloise controlled the women's series all winter.

A rare off-day for the team that led the overall standings: World Cup leader Lucinda Brand finished only tenth, the first time in two years she had missed the podium at a cyclocross she completed. Teammate Shirin van Anrooij was just ahead in ninth. Brand still held the overall World Cup lead — she would go on to win the series — but Maasmechelen was a reminder that even the most consistent rider of the winter could be off the pace on the right day.

Amandine Fouquenet was the best of the non-Dutch riders, riding steadily through the carnage to fourth at +1:27, with Leonie Bentveld backing her up in seventh. A solid team result on a day defined by crashes among the favourites.

France's Amandine Fouquenet won the scrap for the final podium step, taking third at +0:12 and just holding off compatriot Célia Gery on the same time — a standout World Cup result against a deep field.

Amandine Fouquenet rode at the front for much of the race and held on for 3rd at +10s, a clean podium for the squad behind the in-form Pieterse and a strong neo-pro Zemanová.

FDJ rode the front group exactly as a defending champion's team should — Wollaston and Kraak both in the move, the tempo kept high enough to kill counter-attacks, and the sprint set up cleanly. Wollaston's third win of the Australian summer made her the first back-to-back Cadel Evans women's champion; Kraak rounded out the top 10.

The best of the rest behind UAE. Juliette Berthet rode into third overall (same time as Włodarczyk at 1:57), Marie Le Net was third on the Stage 1 sprint, and Léa Curinier was second on the breakaway Stage 3 — a consistent week of podium placings without a stage win, beaten by Blasi's single decisive mountain move.

The Continental-level team landed the day's biggest prize, with Maggie Coles-Lyster reading the flat Tanunda finale perfectly to win the bunch sprint ahead of a WorldTour-heavy field — a standout early-season result for the Canadian sprinter and her squad.

Petra Stiasny lit up the queen stage, climbing into the GC battle on the Angliru and then powering clear in the final kilometres to catch and pass Paula Blasi for a sensational solo victory on cycling's most feared climb. With Barbara Malcotti also climbing into the overall top 10, it was a memorable Asturian weekend for the team.

SD Worx-Protime placed both Marta Lach and Barbara Guarischi on the podium of the replacement criterium, Lach taking second after being squeezed off the lead-out and finding an alternate route to the front.

SD Worx-Protime turned a flat day into a textbook lead-out, driving the chase alongside EF and then setting up Wiebes for the final straight. In her first race back from the Giro d'Italia Women disqualification, the team gave her the cleanest possible platform and she answered with her 127th career win — back-to-back Copenhagen Sprints.

The Continental-level VolkerWessels squad animated the race early, Anneke Dijkstra forming the day's first breakaway alongside Markus before the front group reeled them in. Lonneke Uneken carried the team's finish, rounding out the top ten in tenth from the chase group — a solid result against WorldTour opposition.

Eline Jansen salvaged the squad's race on the final day, making the decisive 10-rider breakaway to Jurançon, crashing in the closing kilometres, then remounting to win the stage ahead of Léa Curinier — a gritty result on a day the GC riders let the move go.

Lauren Stephens (2nd) and Grace Arlandson (3rd) put the squad on two podium steps but couldn't deny Courtney the win.

The domestic Continental squad punched above its weight: Katelyn Nicholson was in the early break with Talbot and held on for fourth, with teammate Sophie Edwards fifth — two riders in the top five against the WorldTour-backed favourites.

Cofidis got the opening day exactly right: they helped close down Kvasničková's long break and delivered Martina Alzini to the Stage 1 sprint in Mourenx, her first win in three years and the first leader's jersey of the race. With Kristýna Burlová also in the Stage 1 top five it was a strong sprint week, though the mountains were always going to belong to others.

Cofidis Women Team took a classification win through Ema Comte, who won the young rider competition comfortably ahead of Talia Appleton and Megan Arens, finishing 2:46 down on the overall. A clear marker of depth for the squad on a selective, technical course.

Crelan–Corendon packed the lower top-10: Sara Casasola (7th), Inge van der Heijden (8th) and Marion Norbert Riberolle (10th) all finished within a handful of seconds of each other. Depth across the chase, if never quite in the podium fight.

EF rode patiently for two days, letting FDJ and UAE control the racing, then executed a near-perfect final stage. Noemi Rüegg was paced back to the front group by world champion teammate Magdeleine Vallières after a wobble on the first Corkscrew, then survived a three-on-one UAE ambush to win the decisive stage and the overall — the first back-to-back Women's Tour Down Under winner since Amanda Spratt's run ended in 2019.

Pre-race favourite Amandine Fouquenet finished fifth at +58", part of the same chasing group that disputed bronze. A clean top-five at the World Championships, but the medal slipped away on the final lap as Pieterse went clear.

Blanka Kata Vas was the best of the non-Dutch riders, finishing fourth at +56" after fighting in the chasing group for bronze. As a single-rider national effort against the Dutch wall of depth, fourth at a home Worlds for the Netherlands was a strong individual ride, but it left Hungary an agonising five seconds off the podium.

The Basque development team had a banner Vuelta through Usoa Ostolaza, who climbed strongly across both Asturian stages to finish fourth overall on home roads — a standout GC result for a continental squad against the WorldTour's best.

Fiona Mangan capped an excellent ride for the French Continental squad with third place from the front group, a standout result for the team against WorldTour and ProTeam opposition on a demanding course.

With Van Empel on hiatus and no defending champion racing, the home nation simply had the numbers and the depth — they took all three medals on home sand. Brand, at 37, was the steadying veteran who turned a wide-open race into a controlled solo win; Alvarado backed it up with silver; and Pieterse, the project's tracked rider here, won a multi-rider scrap for bronze. Manon Bakker (8th) and Shirin van Anrooij (9th) put two more Dutchwomen in the top ten, underlining how dominant the Netherlands remained even without its serial champion.

The MTB world champion translated her engine to the road, surviving every Wertz Avenue selection and winning the sprint from the lead group for a maiden elite road race title and the stars-and-stripes jersey.

Uno-X Mobility's Mie Bjørndal Ottestad rode a clean, consistent week — top five on Stage 1, in the front group on Stage 4 — to take third overall at +1:12, the team's GC headline of the race.