Girmay Takes Locarno: NSN Wins Stage 2 as Pogacar's GC Lead Goes Unchallenged

Stage 2 of the 2026 Tour de Suisse was built for someone exactly like Biniam Girmay. A loop from Locarno into the Swiss-Italian lakeland, three categorised climbs stacked into the final 40 kilometres, and a fast run to the finish through Ticino's lakeside capital — a stage that required climbing ability but delivered the race to whoever arrived at the foot of the Orselina with the best legs and the right timing. Girmay brought both.

The Eritrean sprinter, in his first season with NSN Cycling Team, took the stage in Locarno to hand his new team a result in Switzerland that matched the ambitions the programme came in with. Tadej Pogacar's enormous GC lead — built on a 72-kilometre solo attack through the Sondrio valleys on Stage 1 — held intact. The general classification did not move. Stage 2 belonged to the stage-hunters.

The Road to Locarno

The Locarno circuit is Ticino compressed into a day's riding. From the lakeside start the route pushes south toward the Italian border at Brissago, then swings east and inland along the Val Verzasca approaches before the climbing begins in earnest. Lake Maggiore sits below through most of the early middle section — the Borromean Islands visible on clear days, the Lepontine Alps rising northward above Ascona and Brissago.

The breakaway — four riders, none posing GC risk with Pogacar's lead established — went clear in the first hour and held for most of the stage. The peloton, stripped of the frantic tempo that would have been needed on a general classification day, ticked over at a controlled pace.

Monte Ceneri arrived first. At 5.2 kilometres averaging 6.4 percent, it is the stage's longest climb and the point where the race confirmed its character: not a survival exercise for the GC contenders, but a filtering mechanism for the day's real competition. The GC group, collectively conscious that none of the time gaps at the front mattered today, let the race play forward. The breakaway was absorbed.

The Fanghi — 3.5 kilometres at 7 percent, cresting 14 kilometres from the finish — is where the decisive moves typically form on a stage like this. The gradient forces a selection before the final climb, and the descent to the Orselina approach rewards riders who have something left. Several moves went here. Most were covered.

The Orselina

The Orselina is short and brutal in the way that only Ticino's villages-above-the-lake climbs can manage: 1.4 kilometres at 8.5 percent average, with the steepest ramps sitting in the lower section where legs are already committed from the Fanghi, the final 800 metres easing just enough to allow the very strong to accelerate. It crests approximately 9 kilometres from the Locarno finish.

The descent from Orselina is technical — tight and fast, dropping back through the granite-walled road into the lake basin. Riders who reached the summit with the front group and moved cleanly through the curves arrived at the Locarno waterfront approach with the stage in front of them.

Girmay dealt with the Orselina and made it count on the run to the line. His NSN team, working in the Ticino heat, had placed him in position. The Locarno finish — flat, fast, a broad boulevard along the lakeside — gave a sprinter with climbing legs precisely what Girmay needed: enough road to build speed, enough room to use it.

He crossed in Locarno. NSN's season, which included a Baloise Belgium Tour stage opener already this spring, added a WorldTour stage in Switzerland.

GC: Pogacar's Cushion Holds

The general classification after Stage 2 remained essentially unchanged from yesterday's framework. Richard Carapaz (second overall at +2:22 entering today) and Andrea Bagioli (third at +2:39) finished with the reduced main group. The time Pogacar opened on Stage 1 — 2 minutes 14 seconds to Carapaz at the line in Sondrio — is now the race's defining fact with three stages remaining.

A 2:22 lead at a five-stage race with stages 3, 4, and 5 still to run is not insurmountable, but it requires an extraordinary collapse from Pogacar — the current UCI World Champion — or a series of sustained attacks from rivals who have already demonstrated they cannot follow his accelerations. Carapaz and Bagioli will be watching for any moment of weakness. On the evidence of Stage 1, their window may be narrow.

What Comes Next

Stage 3 tomorrow sends the race north from Locarno across the Gotthard spine and into central Switzerland proper — longer sustained climbing, higher altitude, and conditions that will stretch the peloton across a harder gradient profile than today's punchy circuit. This is where the reduced group from Stage 1 gets tested further. Carapaz, whose Grand Tour palmares includes the 2019 Giro and multiple high-altitude stage wins, will be watching the final climbs with specific attention.

For athletes who want to ride the Locarno and Ticino roads that Stage 2 traced, see our Locarno and Lake Maggiore cycling route guide. For Stage 1's Sondrio field report, see our Stage 1 coverage from Valtellina.