Evenepoel Secures Best Ever Tour de France Result With Second Overall In 2026 Edition

Belgian's podium finish leads Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe to third overall in the team standings after 21 stages of racing across France.

Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's Remco Evenepoel sealed second place in the Tour de France on Paris's famous Champs-Élysées on Sunday afternoon, securing his best General Classification result in cycling's biggest race and helping the squad to third overall in overall Team rankings in the process. Here is all you need to know:

– After finishing third in the GC on his Tour de France debut in 2024, the 26-year-old double Olympic champion and defending time trial world champion was forced to abandon the 2025 edition. The Belgian returned with a vengeance in this year's scorching 113th edition however.

– Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz started the 2026 Tour de France on July 4 with shared leadership of Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe’s general classification campaign, but after finishing second to eventual winner Tadej Pogačar on the mountainous Stage 10, Evenepoel moved up to third in the GC standings and never looked back.

– On the first Alpine finish of the race, the 11.3km climb to the Plateau de Solaison on Stage 15, Evenepoel claimed his first win of the this year's Tour in extremely impressive fashion. He was the only rider able to follow GC leader Pogačar and his team-mate Isac Del Toro as the pace split the group of favourites, and then out-sprinted both rival to his win first Tour de France mountain stage.

– That brilliant ride moved Evenepoel up to second in the GC standings behind clear leader Pogačar and one day later, on Stage 16, he won his second successive stage after dominating the race's only Individual Time Trial this year.

– On Belgium's national holiday, Evenepoel averaged 48.458kph across the 26.1km route from Evian-les-Bains – Thonon-les-Bains to beat Pogačar by 28s and third placed Mattias Skjelmose by a massive 1m 4s. There was bad luck for Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's other leader Lipowitz however, who crashed heavily and was forced to retire from the Tour with a broken collarbone just a year after finishing third in the GC.

– Stage 20, the race's penultimate stage and final high mountain finish, was the final exhausting and nail-biting push to secure the podium for both rider and team – and Evenepoel rose to the challenge in style.

– As Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) rode to victory, Evenepoel dug into his final reserves of energy to break clear of Pogačar and Del Toro with 3km to go and claim second on the stage, securing his second overall in the GC in real style.

– One short final ceremonial stage in central Paris saw Evenepol mount the Tour de France podium for the second time and also secured the best general classification finish in Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe’s Tour de France history. The team also finished a fighting third place in the overall Team Classification as well to conclude an historic tour for the team.

"The very first efforts training after years were really bad for me. I couldn't finish it, and then I said to my teammates: I will continue to the Tour to win stages and not for GC. But then they reassured me: 'Hey, you have time, it will be alright. Just keep believing in yourself, keep doing your training.' And here we are. Second place. So I have to thank my teammates for putting the confidence back into me as well. It’s good for the morale and good for future plans as well," said Evenepoel from the podium.