Kooij wins the Tour de France's first bunch sprint in Pau on his debut
The Dutchman claimed Decathlon's first ever Tour stage win after a late crash split the peloton, with Torstein Traeen keeping the yellow jersey.
Olav Kooij won the first bunch sprint of the 2026 Tour de France in Pau, timing his effort to perfection to take a stage victory on his debut in the race and hand his Decathlon CMA CGM team its first ever Tour win.
The Dutchman came off the lead-out and surged past Max Kanter of XDS-Astana in the final metres, with Tim Merlier completing the podium in third. It was the clean, high-speed finale the fast men had been waiting for after a demanding opening in the Pyrenees, and Kooij underlined his standing as one of the quickest finishers in the peloton.
The 158.3-kilometre stage from Lannemezan to Pau was almost entirely flat, its only obstacle a short third-category climb with 25 kilometres to go. The day's lone breakaway, Frenchman Baptiste Veistroffer, was never given much room, and the bunch stayed together for the run-in. Then a crash just outside the five-kilometre banner split the peloton, leaving a group of around 20 riders to contest the sprint, though there were no significant losses for the overall contenders.
That left the general classification untouched. Norway's Torstein Traeen, in yellow since Tuesday, kept the overall lead for Uno-X Mobility, 28 seconds ahead of American Sean Quinn, with defending champion Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard both nearly eight minutes back and biding their time. Mads Pedersen held on to the green points jersey after another busy ride.
The relief for the sprinters may be brief. The Tour returns to the mountains on Thursday, where the yellow jersey and the race's true climbers will come back to the front. For Kooij and Decathlon, though, a first Tour stage win was a moment to savour.
