Jonas Vingegaard crashed Stage 15

Vingegaard’s Tour de France Ends in a Roundabout Crash — Evenepoel Beats Pogačar Minutes Later

Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour de France ended on a roundabout twenty kilometres from the finish of Stage 15, a crash that has left him with a fractured collarbone and surgery ahead. Half an hour later, Remco Evenepoel beat Tadej Pogačar in a straight sprint on the Plateau de Solaison, his first head-to-head mountain win over the Slovenian at this Tour.

How the crash happened: a roundabout, a motorbike, and a chain reaction

Vingegaard was following three Visma | Lease a Bike teammates, who were driving the pace at the front of the peloton toward the base of the day’s final climb, when the group hit a right-hand bend coming out of a roundabout. He went down along with several other riders. He was immediately in visible pain, and his withdrawal was confirmed shortly afterward.

Team director Marc Reef offered the clearest account from the Visma bus. A race motorbike ahead of the peloton, he said, was forced to brake suddenly for the roundabout, catching the group behind off guard and triggering a chain reaction of braking through the bunch. Vingegaard, he said, was the first rider to go down.

Reef stopped short of blaming the motorbike directly. “I think it is more the parcours at this moment,” he said, describing a corner that arrived with little warning on a fast, technical stretch of road as “a really strange situation.” Asked whether the day’s breakaway had taken a different, safer line through the same corner, which would suggest the hazard was known in advance, Reef said the team had no knowledge of that. Vingegaard was taken to the team bus in Vougy before being driven away for surgery on a fractured collarbone.

A night of doping tests, and questions about fatigue

The crash followed an unusual night for the Tour’s two biggest GC names. Both Vingegaard and Pogačar were woken for surprise anti-doping tests before the stage, Vingegaard at 2 am, Pogačar at 5 am, leaving both with disrupted sleep ahead of a brutal day in the mountains.

Pogačar himself later raised the possibility that Vingegaard’s broken rest may have played a role in the crash, a notable comment given it came from his fiercest rival rather than from Vingegaard’s own camp. Evenepoel, fresh off his stage win, went further, calling on the CPA, the riders’ association, to take action over nighttime anti-doping testing. The CPA responded with a statement calling for a smarter approach to doping controls after several riders were pulled from sleep the same night.

Reef, for his part, declined to draw a direct line between the test and the crash. “I think it’s not something to speculate on,” he said, adding that the team had felt ready and that Vingegaard “was also feeling good during the stage” before the fall. Vingegaard wasn’t the only rider to leave the race that day; three-time stage winner Tim Merlier also abandoned on the same mountainous stage, though for reasons unrelated to the crash.

Evenepoel finally beats Pogačar — and takes his first mountain-stage win

With Visma no longer driving the pace, the race reshaped itself around the maillot jaune. On the 11-kilometre climb to the Plateau de Solaison, Pogačar, Isaac del Toro and Evenepoel rode clear together, reeling in the last man from the day’s breakaway, American champion Quinn Simmons, with 5.5 kilometres to go.

Del Toro attacked twice inside the final kilometre but couldn’t shake Evenepoel from his wheel. In the sprint that followed, del Toro led out and Evenepoel came round him to the line — his first Tour de France stage win outside of time trials, and the first time all season he’s beaten Pogačar directly on a mountain finish. Whether Pogačar simply didn’t have the legs to contest the sprint, or chose not to, remained unclear in the moments after the finish. Full time gaps are on our Stage 15 results page.

The GC picture after Stage 15

Vingegaard’s exit and Evenepoel’s win reshaped the standings in a single afternoon. The gap between 2nd and 10th overall widened to 14 minutes by the finish, a sign of just how hard the Plateau de Solaison hit the group.

General classification after Stage 15:

  • 1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) — leader
  • 2. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) — +5:00
  • 3. Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) — +5:58
  • 4. Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) — +6:23
  • 5. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) — +6:48
  • 6. Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek) — +7:28

Del Toro’s ride also moved him into the white jersey as best young rider. But the bigger story sits at the top of the page: with Vingegaard gone, the rider who had taken the most time out of Pogačar all race is no longer in it. Our GC deep-dive from earlier in the race covers what a fifth title would mean for Pogačar — that path just got a little more straightforward, even with Evenepoel now the closest challenger left standing.

What injury did Jonas Vingegaard suffer in his Tour de France crash?

Vingegaard suffered a fractured collarbone after crashing on a technical corner roughly 20 kilometres from the finish of Stage 15. He was taken from the race for surgery, ending his participation in the 2026 Tour de France.

How did Remco Evenepoel beat Tadej Pogačar on Stage 15?

Evenepoel matched Pogačar and Isaac del Toro on the climb to the Plateau de Solaison, then out-sprinted both in the final metres for his first Tour de France stage win outside of time trials and his first mountain-stage win over Pogačar this season.

Vingegaard’s season now turns to recovery. The Tour continues into its final week with a time trial on Stage 16 — see the full route and schedule for what’s left, and follow it live on our stage tracker.

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