2026 Tour de France Stage 4 Results & Recap
Stage 4 of the 2026 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
A breakaway stage that was won by a breakaway, and what a stage into Foix it was. A huge group of 34 riders initially went clear, before getting slimmed down to 10 on the final climb of the day, including three riders from Lidl-Trek – Mads Pedersen, Mathias Vacek and Quinn Simmons, powerhouses all.
Having defended Pedersen's chances all day, notably on that final climb when the Dane was dropped approaching the summit, Vacek and Simmons chased down every attack that came from the other riders on the run-in, and in the final 300 metres Pedersen switched on the afterburners and blasted several lengths clear of the rest to claim the third Tour stage win of his career. Simmons gave Lidl-Trek a 1-2, relegating Raúl García Pierna (MOV) to third place.
The breakaway group also featured a new race leader. Torstein Træen (UXM) was the best placed of the 34 escapees, 5''06" back on race leader Tadej Pogačar. For much of the stage it looked like the yellow jersey's UAE team were determined to prevent the race lead slipping out of their hands as they kept the gap to around 3 minutes.
However, in the second and far more undulating half of the stage, UAE eased off, perhaps because of the unrelenting heat that meant riders were draining bottles as soon as they were passed up to them. The gap extended, then stretched and finally yawned, reaching a second short of 13 minutes by the time the peloton crossed the line in Foix.
Træen's lead is a narrow one over fellow breakaway Sean Quinn (EFE), who is just 28 seconds back on GC, but there's a significant gap to third-placed Vacek at 3'50" and something of a chasm between the Norwegian and GC favorites Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard (TVL), who are 7'53" in arrears.
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