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What. A. Ride! The seventeenth stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday turned into an absolute spectacle, with plot twist after plot twist. In the end, Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step) just failed to pull off a beautiful solo. Mads Pedersen had the ride of his life, but Jasper Philipsen eventually won in a reduced sprint, in what would prove to be the most spectacular stage of this Tour.
Remco Evenepoel dominated the sixteenth stage and won his second stage in a row. After already coming out on top on the Plateau de Solaison, he also dominated the time trial and solidified his second-place position in the general classification. A major setback, however, was the withdrawal of teammate Florian Lipowitz. The German took a hard fall and broke his collarbone: that was the end of the race for him.
The Tour will continue with a hilly stage. The sprinters who are strong climbers are still hoping for a chance, but the attackers smell blood on this terrain. On paper, it’s a perfect stage for Mathieu van der Poel, who has already struck on a similar, hilly stage earlier in the Tour. But there are plenty of challengers for the Dutch star.
A chaotic start to 'last chance' stage
In any case, as expected, the start was chaotic and quite exciting. Quite a few riders tried to break away, but the peloton kept the pace high. That made sense, especially given how many (different) interests were at stake on Wednesday. In any case, it took a long time before anyone managed to break away.
In the opening stages, we also saw a crash involving, amongst others, Tom Pidock (Pinarello-Q36.5) and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious). The Brit and the Frenchman were soon back on their bikes, but Piet Allegaert (Cofidis) and Dylan van Baarle (Soudal Quick-Step) took a bit longer to recover.
Van der Poel and Pedersen very active
After Valentin Paret-Peintre had taken the first mountain point of the day and Richard Carapaz the second, we reached the Col des Prés. The third-category climb was the toughest of the day, and that marked the start of a new phase. A strong group of 22 riders, including Mathieu van der Poel, Quinn Simmons and Matteo Jorgenson, broke away.
Pedersen wasn’t among them, so we saw the green jersey make another attempt on the steepest sections. The Dane paid the price for this a little later on the climb: Van der Poel was the first to reach the summit with around 50 riders on his wheel, whilst Pedersen crossed the summit some 20 seconds later. Philipsen, in turn, was just a little further behind the Lid-Trek Dane.
The fast descent was a bit chaotic – who exactly was where? That would soon become clear, as the road suddenly climbed steeply again halfway down the descent. We saw a very strong group at the front, including Van der Poel, Simmons and Egan Bernal, but riders such as Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel soon joined them.
Del Toro and Pidcock dropped, Decathlon with strange decision
Suddenly, it seemed as though not all the general classification contenders were in the mix. White jersey wearer Isaac Del Toro, for example, was more than half a minute behind, in a small group with Pedersen. Pidcock had also missed the breakaway. It was a very chaotic phase, and a stage with so much at stake had thus gained yet another element of importance.
When a new wave of attacks came from the front, the leading general classification riders decided to let it go. Del Toro and Pidcock, as well as Jordan Jegat (TotalEnergies) and Yanis Voisard (Tudor), were thus able to rejoin the main group. That seemed to mark the end of a interminable and, above all, highly chaotic opening phase, which had ultimately lasted almost two hours.
Decathlon took over the lead work in the peloton in support of Olav Kooij. The French team did this for several tens of kilometres, keeping the gap fluctuating around half a minute. Despite still having Tiesj Benoot at the front, Decathlon suddenly decided to call off the chase with just over 80 kilometres to go. Quite remarkable, really.
Advantage breakaway? Hoole and Pedersen had other plans
With that, the breakaway did indeed seem to have been sealed, with a total of 16 riders at the front: Hagenes, Hindley, Simmons, Baudin, Benoot, Mohoric, Bernal, Tarling, Stuyven, Van der Poel, Engelhardt, Castrillo, Rubio, Braz Afonso, Martin and Pluimers. Jorgenson, Healy and Le Berre tried to bridge the gap from a stalled peloton.
They succeeded, but in the meantime the peloton had picked up speed again. After Uno-X had briefly taken the lead, Daan Hoole called over the radio to say he still wanted to give it a go. Decathlon therefore suddenly decided to start riding again, and the breakaway group quickly lost ground. Meanwhile, we saw Adam Yates suddenly come to a near standstill. What was going on there?
The British rider from UAE did manage to rejoin the second peloton, and in the meantime we saw yet another twist. Pedersen had jumped from the peloton to the leading group, and it was striking that no Decathlon or Alpecin rider followed him. This caused a split in the peloton.
Philipsen misses the move, followed shortly afterwards by Van der Poel
Yet another twist in what has been a rather bizarre race so far. A group including Kooij also made contact with the front, but Philipsen had missed the breakaway. He found himself 40 seconds behind. Jordan Jegat, number 10 in the general classification, had also been part of the first group.
At the front, things were anything but quiet, with attacks coming from all sides. A group of six eventually broke away: Pedersen, Stuyven, Kwiatkowski, Healy, Planckaert and Engelhardt managed to escape. Van der Poel had thus missed the breakaway, although his team, Alpecin-Premier Tech, did have Planckaert in the group.
Philipsen eventually joined the first group of pursuers, but they soon lost more than a minute to the leading group. Within that group, Pedersen managed to win the intermediate sprint, thereby doing the Dane good business for the green jersey. Not long after, Stuyven saw his opportunity and the Belgian attacked.
Stuyven does everything he can to prevent a sprint
The Belgian put in a fine burst of speed and soon had a half-minute lead over the five chasers. They were caught up not long after by a small group, including Philipsen, Kooij, Michael Matthews and, of course, Pedersen. So it was just Stuyven against a peloton of around 40 riders in the very final stages.
With 3.7 kilometres to go, the brave Belgian was eventually caught, meaning that, after an unprecedented number of twists and turns, we were still set to witness a reduced sprint. Visma | Lease a Bike tried to prevent this with Hagenes, prompting a whole host of attackers to join the fray. Chaos reigned, even at the very end.
The build-up to the sprint was consequently chaotic too, with Van der Poel well positioned with Philipsen on his wheel. The Dutchman executed it perfectly, and so Philipsen sprinted to that hard-fought victory in the Tour de France. It was to be a remarkable one in the Tour de France.
Results of Stage 17 of the 2026 Tour de France
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