JAKARTA - Mexican racer Isaac del Toro won the second stage of the 2026 Tour de France after being the fastest at the uphill finish at Montjuïc, Barcelona, Sunday (5/7), and also brought UAE Emirates-XRG to secure a one-two finish with Tadej Pogacar.
"This means a lot to me. We worked very hard to be here and I have a lot of faith in the team. I still can't believe what I just did," Del Toro said after the race, quoted from the official Tour de France website, Monday.
"Opportunities like this almost never come along and I'm very happy to be able to take advantage of it,"
Del Toro sped past Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) in the final 700 meters of the climb, while Pogacar tailed behind him to secure second place after controlling the movements of the main competitors.
Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) finished the stage in third place, while Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished fourth and still retained the yellow jersey as the leader of the general standings with a six-second lead over Pogacar.
The victory makes Del Toro the second Mexican rider to win a Tour de France stage after Raul Alcala, who won two stage victories in 1989 and 1990.
The result was also the first time that UAE Emirates-XRG had taken the top two positions in a single stage of the Tour de France.
The second stage covers a distance of 168.5 kilometers from Tarragona to Barcelona with a total elevation of around 2,500 meters.
The determination of the winner took place at the 12.2-kilometer closing circuit which includes three climbs of the Côte du Château de Montjuïc with an average slope of 9.3 percent.
The race was aggressive from the start when Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto Intermarché) launched the first attack.
Felix Engelhardt (Jayco AlUla), Frank van den Broek (Picnic PostNL), and Alex Molenaar (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) then formed a leading group with a maximum advantage of three minutes 55 seconds before the peloton took control of the situation.
Molenaar briefly seized the first climbing point of the 2026 Tour de France in Begues, but the breakaway group was eventually caught 32 kilometers before the finish.
Entering the final circuit, UAE Emirates-XRG increased the tempo through Brandon McNulty and Adam Yates so that the main group was cut to about 30 riders.
A number of attacks from Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), to Skjelmose have not been able to break the favorite group.
Skjelmose had opened the door to victory through acceleration in the last two kilometers. However, Del Toro managed to catch up before overtaking on the climb to the finish line, while Pogacar kept his position behind to ensure UAE Emirates-XRG finished one-two.
The result also confirmed the dominance of the team from the United Arab Emirates in the second stage, while Vingegaard remained in the overall standings after maintaining a slight lead over Pogacar.
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