Richard Carapaz knows how to win hearts and minds.
Always aggressive, always classy, always embodying panache.
The Tour de France wasn’t even supposed to be on his 2026 calendar – winning the Giro d’Italia for a second time was what his season was based around, until a perineal cyst ruled him out of the Italian Grand Tour.
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The Ecuadorian – third on GC at the Tour in 2021, and the winner of the mountains jersey and a stage in 2024 – has lit up the race in the final week.
Two stage wins, his second coming on stage 20 atop Alpe d’Huez just two days after his first, and an unassailable lead in the mountains classification – all he has to do is finish in Paris on Sunday to round off a terrific, enviable Tour.
Perhaps only the three podium finishers and Tim Merlier with three stages can be happier. As a bonus – and it really is an added tip – Carapaz will finish eighth on GC.
Unlike other riders in the top-10 who’ve ridden a careful, considered GC race but haven’t earned their respective teams much visibility, Carapaz has shown off the EF Education-EasyPost jersey at the front of the race, repeatedly.
He’s also shown how to ride a Tour de France. He is a proper bike racer. The one everyone dreams of being like.
“We’ve broken many speed and climbing records this year, and every year the competition gets higher and higher, so to win this jersey is very complicated,” the 33-year-old said after sealing his various triumphs.
It was made even more difficult by his injury-marred spring. “When I realised I wouldn’t do the Giro, it was a complicated situation for me,” he said. “When I came out of the operation, I didn’t ride my bike for three weeks and I didn’t know if my preparation for the Tour was complete.
“But working with the team I got a lot of help, not only physically but mentally and morally, and they helped me tremendously.
“When I knew I was coming to the Tour, we knew the first week would be hard, and I lost some time when I had to. I wanted to be 100% in this last week.”
Carapaz always comes into his own when the race enters the high mountains; it’s no surprise – he was born and raised at an altitude of 2,800m. “I knew the last week of the race would be hard but it’s like that every year,” he said.
“The third week is my favourite and we’ve ridden it in a spectacular way, with two stages and the polka dot jersey. We’ve achieved the goal we had when we started in Barcelona.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
When Carapaz began the penultimate stage, he had one main aim: to get in the breakaway and hoover up the dozens of polka dot jersey points on offer over the Croix de la Fer, Télégraphe, Galibier, Saranne and then Alpe d’Huez.
WInning the stage was a secondary ambition. But once over the Galibier, he started to believe. “When we passed the Galibier and went downhill, there was good collaboration with [fellow escapees] Jai Hindley, Sepp Kuss and Juan Ayuso,” Carapaz reflected.
“We had four minutes [lead to the GC group] but we had to stay calm. I knew I had the legs to win. Coming into the last climb I knew I had to do a half-an-hour effort and to pace myself to achieve the victory. Sepp attacked me at one point. I was six or seven seconds behind but I was always close to him.”
Then Kuss, also in the breakaway with Carapaz 24 hours earlier, crashed. Twice. The second time he was saved by netting that prevented the Visma-Lease a Bike rider from falling down a mountain side at speed.
Fortunately Kuss was fine and able to remount, but he had passed up his chance of victory. Carapaz swooped in, ascended the final four kilometres, and won by 26 seconds from Remco Evenepoel; Kuss finished third.
“On Alpe d’Huez I suffered so much,” Carapaz added. “Even though I knew the route until the last metre, I suffered so, so much, but it was worth it to win this stage.
“I think we have deserved what has happened to us. The goal was to win the mountains jerseys – that was our mission – and we did that.”
Two stages and eighth overall ain’t a bad addition, either. Chapeau, Richie.
