The 89th Tour de Suisse came to Villars-sur-Ollon on Sunday for its final stage — 150.7 kilometres of circuit racing over the Col de la Croix, with more than 4,200 metres of elevation gain and a finishing gradient steep enough to separate whatever remained of the field.
The general classification had been settled since Stage 1. That's where Tadej Pogacar attacked 72 kilometres from the finish in Sondrio and rode alone to the line, opening a gap that grew across every subsequent stage and arrived at Stage 5 standing at 4:22 over Richard Carapaz. The queen stage was always going to be a stage-win battle fought in front of a decided overall result.
How Five Days Built to This
Stage 1 — Sondrio circuit, 144km. Pogacar's UAE Team Emirates squad pushed the pace over the first climb, then Pogacar accelerated at the foot of the second, with 71.5 kilometres remaining. He held it to the finish — 2:14 ahead of Carapaz, 2:29 ahead of Bagioli. Roglic lost almost five minutes. The GC was functionally over before Stage 2 started.
Stage 2 — Locarno sprint. Romain Grégoire won the bunch sprint in Locarno, the race's one day designed for the pure sprinters.
Stage 3 — Bad Ragaz, 157.4km. Jhonatan Narváez and Xandro Meurisse broke from the field and held the gap to the finish in Bad Ragaz. Narváez beat Meurisse in the sprint. The GC remained static (covered in our Stage 3 field report).
Stage 4 — Aarburg individual time trial, 23.7km. Pogacar covered the rolling course in 26:37, averaging 53.4 kph. Mathieu van der Poel held the hot seat late in the start order. Pogacar beat him by four hundredths of a second — 0.04 — to take the stage. Carapaz moved to second overall at 4:22, Mathias Vacek third at 4:27, Andrea Bagioli fourth at 4:46 (covered in our Stage 4 field report).
Stage 5 — Villars-sur-Ollon circuit, today. Four ascents of the Col de la Croix — two full, two partial — across 150 kilometres. The climb runs 19.1 kilometres at 7.0% average from the valley floor, with individual sectors that push well above that figure. Villars-sur-Ollon sits partway up at 1,300 metres; the stage starts there, goes over the 1,778-metre summit, returns, and repeats. The total of 4,226 metres of vertical gain makes it the hardest stage of the race by significant margin.
The Col de la Croix
The pass connects Bex in the Rhône valley with the Vaud Alps plateau and descends on the far side toward Les Diablerets. From Villars — where the stage stages its circuits — the partial climb above the resort gains 467 metres across 7.4 kilometres, with ramps that peak at 13%. The full ascent from Ollon below runs 18.2 kilometres at 7.2% average with sections reaching 15.9%.
What makes Stage 5 difficult is not any individual ascent but the accumulation: four crossings of a climb that does not plateau or rest at any meaningful point. Riders who came to Villars-sur-Ollon with the intent to contest the stage win needed eight circuits of climbing legs to make it count when the selection happened.
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The race was still in progress at time of publication. With Pogacar's 4:22 margin secure, the stage fight was open to whoever had the climbing form and the willingness to spend it on a day that couldn't affect the yellow jersey. Van der Poel — 0.04 seconds from a stage win on Saturday — had reason to be here. So did any breakaway specialist who arrived in the Vaud Alps not needing to defend a GC position.
Check the official Tour de Suisse results for the confirmed finishing order and final GC standings.
What the Race Showed
The 2026 Tour de Suisse, as a race, lasted one kilometre. That was the length of the attack on Stage 1 that Pogacar held for 71.5 kilometres to Sondrio. The rest was a confirmation — each stage adding evidence for what the overall standings had already registered on day one.
Van der Poel losing the ITT by 0.04 seconds is the number that travels from this race. A rider who is the world's best one-day racer came within four hundredths of matching the world's best stage racer in his specialist discipline. The Tour de Suisse is not a race that Van der Poel typically targets for overall classification. The time trial suggested he's capable of things this race wasn't structured to reward fully.
Carapaz's second overall extends what has been a consistent high-level season. Vacek's third is a result the 25-year-old will use.
For a guide to riding the Col de la Croix and the Villars-sur-Ollon terrain that Stage 5 covered, see our Vaud Alps cycling destination guide.