Approché par plusieurs équipes dont Visma et Ineos, Valentin Madouas va quitter la Groupama-FDJ pour Cofidis

Valentin Madouas’s time with Groupama-FDJ is coming to an end. Having turned pro in 2018 with the team then managed by Marc Madiot, the Brest native is preparing to move on—to another French team.

After being approached by several foreign teams—including Belgium’s Lotto-Intermarché, the Netherlands’ Visma-Lease a bike, and Britain’s Netcompany Ineos—the Olympic silver medalist ultimately chose Cofidis, where he will sign a two-year contract. As part of the Cofidis team, the 2023 French champion hopes to bounce back after two difficult years. Lacking results (no top-10 finishes in 2026) and victories (he hasn’t won since the 2023 Bretagne Classic in Plouay), Valentin Madouas also hopes to regain his confidence by getting a change of scenery.

Before that, the Finistère native hopes to have a strong (final) second half of the season with Groupama-FDJ: after the Tour of Poland (August 3–9), where he will return to competition, he will make his debut at the Vuelta (August 22–September 13) next month, where he will aim for a stage victory.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

https://www.cyclingnews.com/pro-cycling/doping/i-would-rather-lose-sleep-than-lose-credibility-jonathan-vaughters-says-tour-de-france-night-time-testing-could-have-stopped-past-doping-full-interview/

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Stage Info

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Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the Seventeenth stage of the Tour de France. This is a lumpy stage on the outskirts of the Alps in the multiple small massif that fill the area before thee Alps. We start with a loop around Chambery, the headquarters of the Decathlon team. This loop takes us in the massif des Bauges, where the riders will see most of the elevation of the day with 4 KOM. Afterwards they go in the outskirts of the Chartreuse for the rest of the stage up until Voiron, where Ben Turner won a stage of the Vuelta last year. The finale is a bit tricky with 3 90° turns in the last km.

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ Pedersen

★★ the 80 riders in the break.

★

Well same as stage 4 really, it's not likely to be sprint due to the 80 riders who will try, Lidl will try to do the same thing, the question is with the 2.5 weeks of racing, will they have the energy for it?

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?

And just because it's so rampant these days, I do not use any AI in the creation of my music! Allez Pogi!

Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard are not the only riders to have been woken up in the early hours

The International Testing Agency (ITA) has undertaken night-time anti-doping tests on multiple more riders at the ongoing Tour de France, Cycling Weekly has learned.

Visma-Lease a Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard and race leader Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates-XRG were woken up at 2am and 5am respectively on Sunday morning by doping control officers and made to provide an anti-doping sample.

Tests between the hours of 11pm and 6am are prohibited, except in exceptional circumstances, when the ITA has to request permission from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
The UCI's anti-doping rules state: "Unless the rider has identified a sixty minute testing window between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., or has otherwise consented to testing during that period, the UCI will not test a rider during that period unless it has a serious and specific suspicion that the rider may be engaged in doping."

In a statement late on Sunday, the ITA said that “effective testing must, in limited and justified circumstances, be capable of occurring outside standard daytime hours.”
Pogačar said he did not get back to sleepafter being woken, while stage 15 winner Remco Evenepoel of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe said that it was “inhumane” and “it’s something that actually we should not accept as riders."

Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Cycling Weeklythat at least two other teams have been tested at 5am during the Tour, one in the first week and one in the second week. Cycling Weekly understands that a number of other teams – perhaps as many as eight – have also been subjected to night-time testing.

A spokesperson for the ITA confirmed that more teams were tested outside “usual hours”.
The riders’ union, the Professional Cycling Associations (CPA), released a statement on Monday lending its support to the anti-doping movement, but questioned the “relevance” of night-time testing:
“The Tour de France is a competition that demands exceptional physical effort,” the CPA statement said. “The quality of sleep and recovery is essential not only for performance but also for the health and safety of the riders.
“It is clear that this practice hinders athletes’ recovery during the most important and difficult race on the global calendar and runs counter to the intended objectives.
“Cycling contributes approximately €10m to funding the fight against doping within the ITA for the collection and analysis of samples, while at the same WADA spends, on average, only $5 million per year across all sports on basic research to develop new methods for detecting and identifying new doping substances.
“Would it therefore be more appropriate to invest more in scientific research and detection technologies, rather than increasing the number of particularly intrusive unannounced tests?”

Night-time testing is only used when anti-doping authorities have concerns that an athlete may be engaged in doping practices. It is particularly useful at detecting substances which may have been taken in small doses – referred to as micro-dosing – that isn’t detectable several hours later.
Benjamin Cohen, the director general of the ITA, told The Athletic* *in April that he was in favour of restrictions around night-time testing loosening – but cautioned against blanket testing in the early hours.
“If you go and speak to the (ITA) testing department, they would say: yes, we need to be able to test whenever we can. Certainly, based on information [the ITA has], it would suggest that there is an issue,” Cohen said.
“I don’t think you would want to do mass testing at the Tour de France, for example, and wake up all the athletes at 3am — that doesn’t make sense. I think you would need to have very concrete suspicions (about an athlete) and use that in a very cautious manner.
“I wouldn’t advocate for mass night testing, but certainly for some flexibility if you believe that there is an issue.”

French sports daily L’Équipe reported on Monday that the ITA made their requests ahead of the Tour.
“As is customary in the lead-up to the Tour de France, the public health divisions of the Paris and Marseille judicial courts, which have jurisdiction over doping matters, are in contact with the UCI (International Cycling Union) and the ITA,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told L’Équipe.
“The judges of these two jurisdictions have concurrent jurisdiction to rule on requests for nighttime doping controls. A judge of liberties and detention in Paris was therefore indeed contacted by the ITA, pursuant to Article L.232-14-4 of the French Sports Code, to authorise the doping controls that took place on the night of July 18-19."

According to L'Équipe, the International Testing Agency (ITA) obtained judicial authorization to conduct nighttime anti-doping tests on both Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard during the Tour de France.

The report states that, under French law, such nighttime testing is highly unusual and requires authorization from a judge and can only be approved in the presence of "serious and consistent suspicions."

If this report is accurate, it's a big bomb. Curious to see how this unfold

https://www.lequipe.fr/Cyclisme-sur-route/Actualites/Un-juge-a-autorise-les-controles-antidopage-nocturnes-de-tadej-pogacar-et-jonas-vingegaard/1705928

https://www.cyclingnews.com/pro-cycling/transfers/laurens-de-plus-joins-big-name-domestiques-heading-to-decathlon-cma-cgm-as-team-look-to-build-around-paul-seixas/

Hello and welcome! Today is the second rest day for the men, which means it's time for another pre-race hype thread for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift!

Last week's thread was focused on the biggest candidates for the overall win, so today's thread will be dedicated to everyone else: the legends, the GOAT, the sprinters, the stage hunters and the outsiders.

We should preface this with two disclaimers though. Firstly, we had to make a selection from the available riders. There are numerous superdomestiques, stage hunters and sprinters that do not get a mention here, simply because the post would have been a bit too long otherwise. Secondly, this post has been written well before teams have announced their startlists, so it's possible that we included one or two riders who don't actually end up participating.

The legends

Lotte Kopecky
(🇧🇪 - Team SD Worx-Protime)

For all the fans in the audience who follow men's cycling and want to learn more about women's cycling, we start off by kicking in an open door: Lotte Kopecky is to the women's peloton what Wout van Aert is to the men's.

In other words: while her specialty is one-day classics and she is a powerful sprinter after a hard race, she really excels as an all-rounder. On the one hand, her wins include countless gold medals in track cycling, two world championships on the road, as well as the Ronde van Vlaanderen (x3), Paris-Roubaix, Strade Bianche (x2) and Milano-Sanremo. On the other hand, she has delivered outstanding performances in time trials and stage races when she put her mind to it, with a 2nd place in the Tour and a 2nd place in the Giro as the absolute highlights.

After she failed to contest the GC in the Tour of 2025, she publicly stated that she would step back from targeting GCs for a while, so this year we will see Kopecky in her usual role again: go for stage wins in the hard stages, and serve as Lorena Wiebes' lead-out in sprint stages.

Lorena Wiebes
(🇳🇱 - Team SD Worx-Protime)

Speak of the devil!

SDWorx may not be as dominant in every regard as they once were, but they are nearly unbeatable in sprint stages and the reason for this is Lorena Wiebes. There was a time when a rider like Charlotte Kool would beat Wiebes on a blessed day, but those days have become rare nowadays. When Wiebes is in position, her acceleration and speed are so much stronger than the rest of the peloton, she frequently wins by several bike lengths.

As such, it's no surprise that she has wins spread all over the calendar. In just 2026, she's already at 10. In previous editions of the Tour de France she has won 5 stages, as well as the green jersey in 2025. This year, it's almost unthinkable that she won't win a stage or two, and a second green jersey would then be the logical consequence.

Marianne Vos
(🇳🇱 - Team Visma | Lease a Bike)

Here is another comparison to shake things up: Marianne Vos is to women's cycling what Tadej Pogačar is to men's. This is not an exaggeration, but it does come with a very big asterisk.

During her first year as a pro, in 2006 (yes, you read that right), she already impressed by winning the world championships, both on the road and in cyclocross. What followed was nearly a decade of unprecedented dominance. With the ability to win bunch sprints, mountain stages and punchy classics alike, her competitors had the sense that they were racing for 2nd place in any race that Vos took part in. In this period she took so many wins, most rankings of all-time cyclists will have Vos at spot #1 with an enormous lead over the second rider.

So what's the asterisk? Well, in the seasons 2014 and 2015, Vos became the victim of her own ruthless dominance. She suffered from being overtrained, had to take a prolonged break from cycling, and was forced to reinvent herself in order to sustain a healthy career afterwards. Instead of trying to be the best at everything, she became focused on sprints and punchy terrains -- a specialization that she has been very successful with ever since.

Nowadays her performances are no longer GOAT-like, so don't expect Vos to win a time trial, mountain stage or the GC. In terms of popularity and influence though, she still has no equal. In fact, we should thank her for the fact that we have a Tour de France Femmes at all! More about that in a later pre-race hype post...

The sprinters

We already mentioned Lorena Wiebes and Marianne Vos earlier. While the former is the clear-cut favorite for any flat stage and the latter is another major contender, there are a few more riders to keep an eye on -- both for stage wins and for the green jersey.

Shari Bossuyt
(🇧🇪 - AG Insurance-Soudal Team)

This may be one of the more divisive riders in the current peloton. When she was a up-and-coming talent (with notably a bunch of wins in track cycling), the banned substance letrozole was found in her blood and she received a two-year suspension. While some fans write her off as a doping offender, others believe in her innocence based on her claims that she does not know how the substance had entered her body.

Her suspension is now over, and Bossuyt has continued to climb the ranks. In 2025 she had a few top 10s in the Tour, but in 2026 she cemented herself as a top sprinter by winning a stage in the Vuelta and by outsprinting Lotte Kopecky in the Belgian championships. In this year's Tour, she may just take another win.

Elisa Balsamo
(🇮🇹 - Lidl-Trek)

We were unsure whether to label her a stage hunter or a pure sprinter, because she does have several stellar results in hilly races, in particular with three wins in the Trofeo Binda and with her world title of 2021. The Tour will have stronger specialists for hilly stages though, so it will be difficult for Balsamo to make her mark in that regard. On the other hand, she did a clean sweep of bunch sprints in this year's Giro by winning four out of nine stages, so our bet is that she'll be aiming for those in the Tour as well.

Charlotte Kool
(🇳🇱 - Fenix-Premier Tech)

Perhaps the purest sprinter of them all, and the one who comes closest to challenging Lorena Wiebes' supremacy. She won the first two stages of the Tour in 2024 and wore the yellow jersey for several days, all on her home soil! However, she has also never finished the Tour, so we're not sure if she'll be there to contend the last flat stage at all. With five wins so far this year (including the Scheldeprijs), we do know that she's in strong shape, so who knows!

Ally Wollaston
(🇳🇿 - FDJ United - SUEZ)

Last but not least, a sprinter who really burst into the scene in 2025, by winning Cadel Evans' race (which she won a second time in 2026), the Tour of Britain GC, and several other races. Some traditional media seem to be relatively quiet about her for the time being, but after she started beating riders like Balsamo and Kool in bunch sprints, there's no telling what her limit is. One remark though: she rides for Demi Vollering's team, so it's also not clear yet if she will get much support from the team during the stages she's targeting.

The stage hunters and elite domestiques

Finally we would like to present some riders who are more difficult to categorize. Some will go for the hilly stages, some will go for long breakaways, and some will simply stand out their tireless work in service of a teammate. This is our selection of riders to keep an eye out for.

Franziska Koch
(🇩🇪 - FDJ United - SUEZ)

As an absolute baroudeur, Koch's profile is a bit of a rarity in the women's peloton. During this year's spring classics she delivered several impressive performances to lead teammates Demi Vollering and Elise Chabbey to several prominent wins, and then she topped it off with her own win in Paris-Roubaix. In the Tour we expect that she will be dedicated to helping Vollering so we probably won't see any wins by Koch, but she will definitely play an important role again.

Maëva Squiban
(🇫🇷 - UAE Team ADQ)

This is a rider who experienced an enormous breakthrough during the Tour in 2025. She found herself in a liberated role after the abandonment of Elisa Longo Borghini, and saved her team's tour by winning not one, but two stages. Consecutively. While she certainly managed to profit from the somewhat passive reactions in G2, her wins generated some controversy as fans saw similarities with Mark Padun's wins in 2021. It's up to her to prove to the world that those strong performances were more than just a flash in the pan.

Magdeleine Vallieres
(🇨🇦 - EF Education-Oatly)

On the subject of unexpected winners, the current world champion definitely needs to be mentioned! Many fans hadn't even heard her name before when she soloed to the victory in Kigali, but she has meanwhile done more than enough to prove her merit. She is yet to take another big win, but she has done tremendous amounts of work in this year's spring campaign, both for herself and her teammates. Definitely someone to watch, and she's not difficult to spot!

Puck Pieterse
(🇳🇱 - Fenix-Premier Tech)

Fans have a special spot for perpetual attackers who don't win a lot of races. Prime example: Puck Pieterse. With her endless gusto on any terrain, she is well aware of the fact that her approach isn't always the most tactical one, but it has led to some wonderful results: a stage and the white jersey in the 2024 Tour, the Fleche Wallonne in 2025, and a handful of podium finishes in all the biggest classics. At barely 24 years old, she doubtlessly still has room to improve, so don't be surprised if she takes another big step forward in this year's Tour.

Liane Lippert
(🇩🇪 - Movistar Team)

For the same reason as Puck Pieterse, Liane Lippert is immensely popular with the fans. She is an expert on hilly terrain and could be counted among the favorites in stages with a short uphill finish. To back this up: three stage wins in the Giro, and one in the Tour. The big question is whether she can ride for her own results at all this year, as Marlen Reusser's GC ambitions will be the team's main goal.

Kristen Faulkner
(🇺🇸 - EF Education-Oatly)

Let's introduce her by listing her last three wins: the Pan-American ITT championships, the American national championships, and... the Olympic road race in Paris. That list says it all: her major goals are few and far between, but she can rise to the occasion like no other. This year her team targets the GC with Kerbaol, but Faulkner's knack for an opportunistic attack may give her some opportunities too.

Juliette Berthet (née: Labous)
(🇫🇷 - FDJ United - SUEZ)

In her last ten grand tours, Berthet only finished outside of the GC top 10 one single time. It highlights her range of strengths well: a strong time trialist and climber, perhaps just a tad weaker than the race favorites, and impressive consistency. In the Tour de France she was Demi Vollering's star domestique in the mountain stages, and this year she'll certainly want to repeat that performance.

Dominika Włodarczyk
(🇵🇱 - UAE Team ADQ)

Last in this list is another teammate of Elisa Longo Borghini and Paula Blasi, so the question will be whether she will ride for her own result at all. But just like Squiban with her stage wins, Włodarczyk saved the team's Tour in 2025 by finishing 4th in the GC, just seconds away from the podium, and she has shown further improvement in 2026 with two stage wins in the Itzulia as a highlight.

Nienke Vinke
(🇳🇱 - Team SD Worx-Protime)

Last in this list is the winner of the white jersey in 2025. Her track record is perhaps the most modest one of anyone mentioned here, but at the age of 22 she still has lots of room for development. And her top 10 finish in this year's Liège-Bastogne-Liège shows that she deals well with a very hard race at the top level. One side note: she has transferred to SDWorx in 2026 so she is another rider who may be limited to a pure domestique role.

That's it from us today! As mentioned before, there are certainly some riders missing in this list, so it will be interesting to read who else you will be following.

Stage Info

Weather

Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the sixteenth stage of the Tour de France!

3rd week is here and with that, the TT! This TT takes us from Evian-les-Bains to Thonon-les-Bains, with the Lac Léman as a background for most of the stage. This really takes us in one of the richest part of France. As soon as the riders start, they go up the Côte de Larringes, a Cat 2 9.7km long at 4.3%. The riders will be able to stay in aero position but is will also kill the chances of flat TT specialists. It's also not really technical. The descent however is fairly technical and once thet get into Thonon it's a mix of long straight lines and Tight, technical corners. So it's a TT where riders can put out some power but also have to watch out for errors.

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ Evenepoel

★★ Pogacar

★ Ganna, Del Toro, Seixas

Yeah I have to put Ganna. You never know, but if he's smart he's saving up for stage 17, he very likely has no shot tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how Seixas and Del Toro match up compared to Pais Vasco in April where Seixas convincingly beat Del Toro on a not too unsimilar profile. Evenepoel, even more so with yesterday's stage, seems like the favourite. However it is the Tour and Pogacar in a Tour TT is a different beast so you never know.

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?

Wow! Did you see that chicken? And how about that guy, yeah, we all have a friend like that, but usually someone stops them.

The second rest day has arrived. The riders get a well-earned break, the mechanics finally have a moment to catch their breath, and the sports directors are already planning for the decisive final week.

The Guess the Gap leaderboard has seen some changes!

u/Team_Telekom remains firmly in first place and heads into the final week still wearing the virtual yellow jersey. The lead is intact, but nothing is decided yet.

u/RaylanGivens8 has climbed into second place with a strong run of predictions.

u/Avila99 now occupies third place after moving up the standings at just the right time.

With the Alps still to come and the final stage into Paris ahead, everything is still to play for. One unexpected breakaway, a surprise time gap, or a chaotic sprint finish could completely reshape the leaderboard.

Good luck to everyone with the remaining predictions!

Here you'll find the overall standings

Here you can choose your Gap/Group for the last stages

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For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.