Remco Evenepoel produced the finest road victory of his Tour de France career on Sunday, winning stage 15 atop the Plateau de Solaison ahead of race leader Tadej Pogacar. But the Alpine afternoon will be remembered as much for what the race lost as for what the Belgian won: Jonas Vingegaard, twice a champion in Paris and lying second overall at the start of the day, crashed on the approach to the final climb and left the race in an ambulance, abandoning a Grand Tour for the first time in his career.
The 183.9-kilometre stage from Champagnole delivered the first summit finish of this Tour's Alpine block — the hors-categorie Plateau de Solaison, 11.3 kilometres at around nine per cent, making its Tour debut. Inside the final kilometre Isaac del Toro launched the expected attack. Evenepoel matched the young Mexican, then countered decisively, crossing the line ahead of Pogacar with Del Toro third at six seconds. The next group, including Paul Seixas and Florian Lipowitz, conceded just under a minute.
It was a breakthrough for Evenepoel, now in his first season with Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe. His previous Tour stage wins had come against the clock; this was his first at the summit of a mountain, taken toe-to-toe with Pogacar on one of the steepest finishes of the race. With the world time-trial champion refusing to crack on the double-digit ramps, the result reframes the podium battle heading into the final week.
The decisive drama, though, came roughly 21 kilometres from the finish. With Visma-Lease a Bike driving the peloton in pursuit of the breakaway, Vingegaard's front wheel slipped as he exited a roundabout and he went down hard into the kerb, according to reports from the race by Cyclingnews and TOUR Magazin.
His teammate Sepp Kuss and UAE Team Emirates-XRG riders Isaac del Toro and Brandon McNulty were also brought down. Del Toro remounted quickly, but the Dane could not continue.
Race doctors treated Vingegaard at the roadside and placed his right arm in a sling before he was taken away in a race ambulance, with international outlets reporting a heavy impact to his shoulder. Visma-Lease a Bike had not published a full medical bulletin by the time the stage finished, and the precise extent of the injury remained unconfirmed on Sunday evening. The team's withdrawal of its leader ends his bid for a third Tour title in the cruellest fashion.
Vingegaard's exit redraws the general classification. Pogacar, who by several accounts rode in service of Del Toro's podium ambitions rather than chasing the stage himself, retains the yellow jersey — and the polka-dot jersey besides. Evenepoel moves up to second overall at five minutes, with Del Toro third at 5:58, while Mads Pedersen continues to lead the points classification. Monday's rest day now precedes a final week in which the fight is for the podium as much as for yellow.
For Israeli fans, this is the first Tour since the team founded as Israel Cycling Academy stopped down its national identity. The former Israel-Premier Tech now races as NSN Cycling Team under a Swiss licence, owned by the Never Say Never group co-founded by Andres Iniesta, after the protest-scarred 2025 season.
Its eight-man Tour squad, built as a sprint train around Biniam Girmay, includes no Israeli riders this year — Israeli champion-in-waiting Nadav Raisberg was left off the roster. A brutal summit finish like the Solaison was always going to be a day of survival rather than opportunity for the sprint-focused outfit, which The Times of Israel reports is experiencing a far calmer race since the rebrand.
