{"id":88509,"date":"2026-06-20T17:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/88509\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T17:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:17:10","slug":"tour-de-suisse-2026-stage-5-preview-pogacars-queen-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/88509\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de Suisse 2026 stage 5 preview: Pogacar’s queen stage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re two weeks away from the Tour\u2019s start <\/a>in Barcelona, which means the preparatory races are slowly coming to an end. The Tour de Suisse is wrapping things up with a nice and now familiar finale, as the route once again passes through Villars-sur-Ollon. IDL Pro Cycling breaks it all down.Stage 5 Route, Tour of Switzerland 2026\"zwitserland-5\"\/This year\u2019s Tour de Suisse features the exact same start and finish locations<\/a>, and, naturally, the final stage is no exception. The Col de la Croix takes center stage in that stage\u2014a climb we\u2019re already familiar with from recent editions. That\u2019s not surprising, since it starts in Aigle, where the UCI is headquartered.In 2024, two stages even finished there, won by<\/a> Joao Almeida and Adam Yates. The season before that, Mattias Skjelmose took the win. One key difference: this time, the Col de la Croix\u2014which continues briefly past the Alpine village\u2014with its 19.1 kilometers at a 7.0 percent gradient, is on the schedule three times, making it even tougher than in 2024.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"col-de-la-croix\"\/<\/p>\n

So we\u2019ll finish in Villars-sur-Ollon, which means the final climb of the day is 9.6 kilometers long with an average gradient of 8.0 percent. After a day with so much elevation gain, this is undeniably still tough enough to make a difference, especially since there\u2019s hardly any chance to recover.<\/p>\n

Times
Start: 1:34 p.m CET
Finish: 5:04 p.m CET<\/p>\n

Weather, Stage 5 2026 Tour of Switzerland<\/p>\n

It will also be hot in Central Europe on Saturday. In Villars-sur-Ollon, which is located at 1,250 meters above sea level, the temperature will still rise to 26 degrees Celsius. There will be little to no wind, so it promises to be a hot day.<\/p>\n

2026 Tour of Switzerland stage 5 favouritesTadej Pogacar<\/a> is the Swiss Army knife of this race and therefore the clear favorite for this final stage. The Slovenian rider from UAE Emirates-XRG is eager to finish the race with a victory to honor his fallen partner Urska Zigart, and what better way to do that than by winning the final stage while wearing the leader\u2019s jersey?<\/p>\n

If someone else is looking to win, we\u2019ll mainly be watching the early breakaway. Bahrain Victorious team leaders Antonio Tiberi and Lenny Martinez , for example, are already far behind, but their performances in the heat tend to be a bit inconsistent.<\/p>\n

Also among them are Enric Mas, Javier Romo (Movistar), Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull), Cl\u00e9ment Champoussin (XDS-Astana), Jarno Widar ( Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9), and Emiel Verstrynge (Alpecin-Premier Tech) are already well behind in the general classification.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"lenny-martinez\"\/<\/p>\n

A stage tailor-made for Lenny Martinez?<\/p>\n

On behalf of UAE, they can also play with their domestiques, since Brandon McNulty, Felix Grossschartner, and Jhonatan Narvaez are also excellent climbers. That way, they can cover any other general classification contenders, such as Wilco Kelderman (Visma | Lease a Bike), Finlay Pickering (Bahrain), and Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step).<\/p>\n

After Pogacar, it may be up to strong climbers like Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Matthew Riccitello ( Decathlon CMA CGM), and Mikel Landa ( Soudal Quick-Step) to fight for a spot on the podium. For Lidl-Trek riders Andrea Bagioli and Mathias Vacek, it will likely be too tough. And what about Primoz Roglic, the enigma of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe?<\/p>\n

IDL Pro Cycling top picks for Stage 5 of the 2026 Tour de Suisse?<\/p>\n

Top Favorite: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG)
Dark horses: Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM), Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Visma | Lease a Bike), and Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick-Step)
Long shots: Wilco Kelderman (Visma | Lease a Bike), Felix Grosschartner, Brandon McNulty (UAE Emirates-XRG), Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9), Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step), and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re two weeks away from the Tour\u2019s start in Barcelona, which means the preparatory races are slowly coming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[88,11009,41,17,16524,36733],"class_list":["post-88509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-cycling","tag-previews","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-of-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116783575656687139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}