2026 Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Stage 1 Results & Recap
Stage 1 of the 2026 Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
The last survivor from the day's breakaway, Alex Baudin (EFE) took the first WorldTour victory of his career when he finished solo at the end of a very undulating stage into Saint-Ismier. The Frenchman dropped his last two breakaway companions on the final climb and held off a late chase from the bunch to finish 32 seconds clear of a group of 10 chasers headed by Ramses Debruyne (APT) and Léo Bisiaux (DCT).
From the stage start in Vizille, EF Education-EasyPost were prominent among the teams looking for the breakaway. Max Walker (EFE) was part of the first sortie. Georg Steinhauser and, more briefly, Ben Healy (EFE) were in the second, while Alastair MacKellar (EFE) was one of the instigators of what proved to be the break of the day.
There were seven riders in that move initially. Baudin bridged across to it with another two, making 10 up front. As the race entered the rugged Vercors massif, some of the frontrunners were dropped, while other bridged across, the last of them George Bennett (NSN).
Crossing the first climb, the 11 breakaways had a lead of 2 minutes on the bunch. Their lead never reached much more than that, and had been cut to 1'15" on the third categorized climb, the cat 2 Quaix en Chartreuse.
At the summit, only five riders were still clear at the front – Baudin, Bennett, Mattéo Vercher (TEN), Clément Braz Afonso (GFC) and Sergio Samitier (COF), who was dropped soon after.
The quartet of esapees managed to push their lead back up to 2'05" going onto the fourth climb of the day, the cat 2 Col de Vence, but had lost half of that advantage when they reached the foot of the final test, the cat 1 Côte de Rousset.
Aware of the peloton's rapid approach, Baudin attacked on the early ramps of this climb. For a brief time, it looked as if the Frenchman was just delaying the inevitable catch by the bunch. Gradually, though, his lead edged up again, reaching 1'05" by the summit.
Despite some attacks from a much-reduced peloton, notably by Kevin Vermaerke (UAD), Baudin's advantage held firm and he rode alone in to secure a clean sweep of the overall, points, mountains and best young rider jerseys, plus the prize for the most combative rider of the day.
Behind him, there were more attacks from the peloton in the closing kilometers, the last of them featuring Oscar Onley (NCI), Kévin Vauquelin (NCI), Luke Tuckwell (RBH) and Luke Plapp (JAY), who gained a dozen seconds on the other GC favorites when they came in on the heels of Debruyne and Bisiaux.
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