Richard Carapaz raced aggressively and smartly to take his second ever Tour de France stage win, this time atop the Orcières-Merlette climb, on stage 18.
His victory is the first one for the EF Education-EasyPost team at this Tour.
It also boosted Carapaz’s chances of taking the king of the mountains’ jersey, currently held by yellow jersey wearer Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirate-XRG), who finished minutes behind.
He is now third in that contest at seven points back.
“Today has been a very, very crazy day. For us it was an objective to be in the breakaway and try to go for the stage,” Carapaz said afterwards. “Today I had the determination to win the stage. This was my motivation – to be in the game to win the stage.
“Today’s breakaway had a lot of quality riders in it. Mauro [Schmid] has already won one stage, and I had a lot of respect for the others in the group for type of riders that they are. It was a brilliant day. Our [breakaway] group rode well and we understood our roles well. It was a different victory because of how much quality was in the break.”
The Ecuadorian had survived a day of attacks and counter attack in the front group to arrive on the final 7km climb with five others, including fellow polka-dot jersey challenger Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step), who ended the day just one point behind Pogačar in the polka-dot jersey race.
Around half-way up the climb Carapaz splintered the group with a stinging attack but was brought back. Then spotting his rivals riding on the other side of the road he accelerated again and swiftly built a gap and soloed to the line.
It had been, much like yesterday, an aggressive day of racing. By the top of the early Côte d’Engin climb a break of seven, including yesterday’s most combative rider Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) who was chasing points at the intermediate sprint, had established themselves at the front.
Their numbers would swell until with around 110km to race, the peloton appeared to sit up, content to let the escapees go.
Attacks in the peloton saw Egan Bernal (Netcompany Ineos), Carapaz and Paret-Peintre bridge up to the front of the race.
The front group would swell to 14 by the intermediate sprint where Pedersen took the maximum 25 points.
Now with 56km left to race attention turned to the stage and the finish up the first category Orcières-Merlette climb and as it pushed the pace some riders dropped.
As the race entered its decisive moments at 25km to go Jorgenson attacked the front group, but was marked out, though Paret-Peintre was briefly dropped.
The front group stayed together over the top of the third category Côte de Saint-Léger-les-Mélèzes and descended to the bottom of the day’s final climb together. The group was now made up of Jorgenson, Carapaz, Paret-Peintre, Schmid, Johannessen and Garcia García Pierna.
Further back in the peloton UAE Emirates-XRG’s defences looked to under pressure as Brandon McNulty, who crash riding a recon of Tuesday’s time trial, abandoned the race and Adam Yates remained below his usual level due to illness.
With 12km to go, before the leaders hit the beginning of the final climb Jorgenson tried once again to go away solo but was brought to heel. With a lead of over three minutes over the first chase group come the bottom of the climb the days winner was almost certain to come from the group of six out front.
As the race hit the steeper sections of the final climb with around 5km to go Jorgenson once again put a dig in but was marked by Carapaz.
With 4km to go Carapaz launched his own stinging attack and only Paret-Peintre was able to follow him. Schmid and Jorgenson then bridged up to the attackers.
Then riding on the other side of the road Carapaz once again accelerated and put daylight between himself and the rest. They never saw him again until after the finish.
Can he now win the polka dot jersey? “Winning a stage was more important for us, but now we’re entering into the real mountains, there are a lot of points at play,” he said.
“If Tadej scores points it’s going to be difficult, but if we can try, I will try. In my mind I want to be able to finish with the jersey in Paris. It’d be something very beautiful.”
Result
Tour de France 2026, stage 18: Voiron > Orcières-Merlette (185km)
1. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, in 4:26:21
2. Mauro Schmid (Sui) Jayco-AlUla, +45s
3. Matteo Jorgenson (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, in same time
4. Valentin Paret-Peintra (Fra) Soudal Quick-Step, +1:14
5. Tobias Halland Johannessen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, +1:57
6. Raúl García Pierna (Esp) Movistar, +2:21
7. Pablo Castrillo (Esp) Movistar, +4:30
8. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain Victorious, +4:35
9. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
10. Tom Pidcock (GBr) Pinarello Q36.5, all at same time
General classification
1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 64:35:13
2. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Redu Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +4:32
3. Isaac del Toro (Mex) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +6:51
4. Paul Seixas (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +7:11
5. Juan Ayuso (Esp) Lidl-Trek, +9:22
6. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek,+10:14
7. Lenny Martinez (Fra) Bahrain-Victorious, +12:50
8. Tom Pidcock (Gbr), Pinarello Q36.5, +12:58
9. Jordan Jegat (Fra) ToralEnergies, +14:04
10. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +21:00
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