The road tilted upward through Montjuïc, and Isaac del Toro chose his moment. Inside the final kilometre of Stage 2 of the 2026 Tour de France, on his first appearance at the race, the Mexican surged clear to win in Barcelona and complete a UAE Team Emirates-XRG one-two. Del Toro made a daring late move in the final kilometre to take the second stage of the 2026 Tour de France on an uphill finish in Barcelona, chasing down late attacker Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek.
The finale on Montjuïc
The stage ran 168.5 kilometres from Tarragona to Barcelona, and the day was quiet until the finishing circuits arrived. The steep finishing circuits of Barcelona's Montjuïc produced the first showdown between the general classification favourites, and it was Isaac del Toro who emerged as the day's biggest winner. UAE Team Emirates-XRG took control of the run-in and shaped the closing kilometres to their will.
The decisive seconds carried a twist. Del Toro won stage 2 in Barcelona after Tadej Pogačar appeared to allow his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate to cross the line first at the Olympic Stadium. Pogačar launched the final sprint after UAE had controlled much of the Montjuïc finale, and Del Toro accelerated past him. Behind them, Remco Evenepoel finished third while Jonas Vingegaard retained the yellow jersey. That Del Toro reached the front at all owed something to resilience: he overcame a mechanical setback earlier in the stage.
A step in the story
The result reshapes a young trajectory. The Mexican claimed the biggest victory of his career by winning Stage 2 of the 2026 Tour de France, powering UAE Team Emirates-XRG to a one-two finish ahead of teammate Tadej Pogačar on the uphill finish. He is only the second Mexican rider to win a Tour de France stage, after Raúl Alcalá at the turn of the 1990s, and he pulled on the white jersey of best young rider in the process.
Del Toro arrived at the Tour with a reputation already forming through his climbing and his instinct for the right moment. Barcelona confirmed it on the sport's largest stage, and against the strongest company. To beat the field on debut, then to be given the line by the man widely regarded as the world's finest rider, marks a rider trusted with the biggest occasions.
One Sunday on Montjuïc, a country waited thirty-six years for a second name. Isaac del Toro wrote it.
