A year of racing, rivalries and remarkable rides. A Detour yarn.
There’s nothing quite like a year in professional cycling. Twelve months of big promises, broken dreams, glorious victories and the occasional fellow who seems to have forgotten that the rest of the peloton is supposed to get a turn.
That’s what makes the WorldTour such a wonderful sport to follow. You can spend six hours watching a race in which nothing appears to happen, only for the whole thing to explode in the final 10 kilometres. Or a bloke disappears up the road with 50 kilometres to go, leaving the opposition looking at one another as though somebody has misplaced the race plan.
2026 gave us the whole circus, from the cobbles of Belgium and northern France to the high mountains of the Grand Tours, where even the bravest discover that gravity, fatigue and a bad day in the saddle don’t give a damn about your reputation.
So pull up a chair, and let’s look back at the year.
The man who kept raising the bar
You’d think by now the opposition might have worked out Tadej Pogačar. Watch the Slovenian, mark his wheel, make him earn every metre. Easier said than done.
In 2026 he won Milan–San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, finished second at Paris–Roubaix, and then won his fifth Tour de France, joining the very small club of riders who have won it five times.
That’s the rub for the rest of the peloton. Against most champions you can find a weakness and build a race around it. With Pogačar, the list of things he does well just keeps getting longer.
He doesn’t win every race, and that matters. But he has a knack of turning the biggest occasions into his own personal stage.
The cobbles: van Aert’s Roubaix
If ever a rider deserved a day when the stars aligned, it was Wout van Aert. For years the Belgian has been one of the most versatile riders in the sport: sprinting, climbing, time-trialling and surviving the sort of rough stuff that sends a mechanic reaching for the swear jar.
At Paris–Roubaix on 12 April he finally got it, beating Pogačar in a two-man sprint in the velodrome for his first cobbled Monument. Jasper Stuyven took third.
Picture the tension. More than 250 kilometres of racing, punctures and mechanicals scattering the favourites, and at the end van Aert alongside Pogačar for the showdown. One man wanted the biggest win of his career. The other wanted another Monument for the collection. This time, van Aert got to celebrate.
For Belgium, Roubaix is part of the national sporting furniture: the cobbles, the mud, the Arenberg and the velodrome. Talent matters, and so does preparation. But sometimes a great champion just needs the day when everything finally comes together.
The Classics belonged to the fearless
Milan–San Remo. Pogačar won the first Monument of the season, beating Tom Pidcock and van Aert. A race that so often frustrates attackers rewarded the rider who made his move count.
Tour of Flanders. Another big scalp for Pogačar, ahead of Mathieu van der Poel, with Remco Evenepoel third. On those Flemish climbs, power is only part of it; positioning and timing matter just as much.
Amstel Gold Race. Evenepoel took the honours, proving he can win the one-day races as well as the stage races.
La Flèche Wallonne. Young Frenchman Paul Seixas won, announcing himself as a serious force in the biggest one-day races.
Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Pogačar again, with Seixas second and Evenepoel third.
Three of the spring’s four Monuments went to Pogačar, and van Aert claimed the other. The established stars were all still there, but a new generation was refusing to wait politely for its turn. Which brings us to Seixas.
Paul Seixas: the kid who refused to wait
At just 20, Paul Seixas has become one of the most exciting stories in world cycling. He won the Tour of the Basque Country and Flèche Wallonne, was second at Liège, finished fourth in the Tour de France on debut, and then capped it all by winning Il Lombardia in October.
And he didn’t sneak home in a reduced bunch at Lombardia. He went on the Civiglio, rode solo to Como, beat Enric Mas by 48 seconds, and became the youngest winner in the race’s history.
We’ve seen young riders arrive with enormous reputations before. Some fulfil them; others find out that professional cycling is an unforgiving business. But Seixas has shown he can handle different courses, deliver under pressure and go toe-to-toe with the biggest names. The French have every reason to be excited, though the sensible thing is to let the young fellow develop without expecting him to win everything before he’s old enough to hire a car in some countries.
That is some introduction to the big league.
The Giro: Vingegaard takes the pink
The Giro has always had a special place in the calendar. It’s unpredictable, the roads are brutal, the weather can turn nasty, and the mountains expose anyone who arrives a few per cent short of their best.
In 2026 Jonas Vingegaard added the Giro to his Grand Tour collection, ahead of Felix Gall, with Australia’s Jai Hindley third.
Hindley’s podium was particularly satisfying for us. The West Australian won the Giro in 2022, and another top three in Italy shows he’s still a serious three-week contender.
The Giro is never just about being the best climber on one spectacular afternoon. You have to survive the time trials, the transfers, the cold days, the nervous descents, and the mornings your legs feel like somebody replaced them overnight. The pink jersey was Vingegaard’s reward for getting the job done.
The Tour de France: Pogačar does it again
If the Giro belonged to Vingegaard, the Tour belonged to Pogačar. He won by 6 minutes 26 seconds from Evenepoel, with Isaac del Toro third. Del Toro also took the white jersey, Mads Pedersen the green and Richard Carapaz the polka dots.
Winning the Tour takes more than climbing faster than everyone else. You need a strong team, the ability to recover day after day, and the judgement to know when to attack and when to let somebody else burn their matches.
Evenepoel’s second was a significant result; taking on Pogačar over three weeks is a daunting job. Del Toro’s third on debut tells you UAE Team Emirates-XRG has another outstanding Grand Tour rider on its hands. And then there was Seixas, fourth on his Tour debut.
The big question remains: who can consistently make Pogačar uncomfortable over three weeks? Vingegaard has done it before, Evenepoel is chasing that level, and Seixas is the young challenger everyone will be watching. That’s a pretty healthy situation for the sport.
The Vuelta: a Spanish revival
The last Grand Tour of the year delivered a terrific story. Enric Mas finally won his first Grand Tour, taking the Vuelta for Movistar ahead of Primož Roglič and Felix Gall. It was Spain’s first home winner since Alberto Contador in 2014.
Mas has spent years knocking on the door, with three second places at the Vuelta. This wasn’t an outsider appearing from nowhere. It was a rider who’d come close again and again, finally putting the three weeks together.
The race turned when Pogačar crashed out on stage 8. Mas inherited the lead and then had to defend it for almost two weeks. That’s the part of Grand Tour racing people overlook. Getting into the jersey is one thing. Carrying it day after day, with every rival looking for a weakness, is quite another.
Mas held his nerve, and Movistar had its first Grand Tour since 2019. That’s one worth savouring.
Montréal: so close for Bling
The World Championships gave us a surprise winner and very nearly an Aussie one. American Brandon McNulty went clear with 33 kilometres to go and held on for the rainbow jersey, the first American to win it in 33 years. Michael Matthews won the sprint for silver, 13 seconds back, ahead of Mathieu van der Poel.
McNulty was a worthy winner. But gee, so close for Michael, especially when you consider he had two broken arms in March. It was his fourth Worlds podium.
And what about the Australians?
Hindley on the Giro podium and Matthews on the Worlds podium were the headline results. But the Aussie story in 2026 was bigger than that: Pat Eddy’s surprise win at the Nationals, the emergence of Luke Tuckwell, and the comeback and resilience of Jay Vine, who keeps reminding us just how much ability he has.
And plenty of it never shows up in a results sheet. A rider who spends two weeks burying himself to keep his leader out of trouble may finish nowhere near the podium, but his contribution can be enormous. Anyone who followed the eras of Stuart O’Grady, Robbie McEwen, Cadel Evans and Simon Gerrans knows Australia produces riders for almost every role in a professional team.
The challenge is keeping that conveyor belt moving: developing young riders, giving them international opportunities, and making sure the step from domestic racing to the WorldTour isn’t an impossible leap. That’s a subject we’ll keep coming back to.
The final word
So what do we take from 2026? Pogačar remains the benchmark. Van Aert finally landed his Roubaix. Vingegaard added the Giro. Mas delivered a long-awaited Spanish triumph. McNulty stunned everyone in Montréal. And Seixas emerged as one of the defining young riders of the season.
The interesting thing is that these stories aren’t happening in isolation. The old rivalries are still there, but the next generation is arriving with enough talent to make the established champions look over their shoulders.
And that’s the best thing about this sport. You can watch a race for hours, convinced you know how it’s going to finish, and then one attack changes everything. One rider takes a chance. Another hesitates. A team gets its tactics right, or spectacularly wrong, and the whole story changes.
That’s cycling. That’s why we keep coming back. And that’s a season worth telling a yarn about.
