Paris-Tours 2026 is on Sunday, October 11: 216.2 kilometers from Chartres to Tours, with ten vineyard tracks in the last 66. A win would make Matteo Trentin the first four-time winner. Christophe Laporte, the 2024 winner, is the best placed to stop him, and Tim Merlier starts the race for the first time. In the United States Peacock streams it live from 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Paris-Tours 2026 route: Chartres to Tours over ten vineyard tracks
The riders roll out of Chartres at 11:55 a.m. local time and the race starts at 12:10 p.m., which is 6:10 a.m. Eastern. For 148 kilometers the route runs south, and the organizer’s sheet lists no climb there. Trentin, who has ridden the race seven times, told the organizer that it is “a hard race to win, especially if it’s not windy at the beginning; then you really need to be good in all the gravel sections while saving some legs for the final.”
The Côte de Cangey, with 68 kilometers to go, is the first of nine climbs on the sheet, and the first vineyard track, at Limeray, starts 65 kilometers from the finish. The ten tracks add up to 10.5 kilometers of unpaved road between the vines. The longest is the Peu Morier, 1,600 meters, with 20.6 kilometers left. The steepest climb is the Côte de la Rochère, 370 meters at 11 percent, 26 kilometers out, and the track at Vernou begins at its top.
The last track, 800 meters at Rochecorbon, ends 11 kilometers from the line. The Côte de Rochecorbon, 620 meters long, tops out with 8.8 kilometers to go. The finish is on Boulevard Béranger in Tours, as it was last year, and the organizer expects the winner between 4:46 and 5:12 p.m. local time.
Can Matteo Trentin win Paris-Tours a fourth time?
Trentin won in 2015, 2017 and 2025. Gustave Danneels, Paul Maye, Guido Reybrouck and Erik Zabel also won three times, and nobody has won four. Last year Paul Lapeira and Thibaud Gruel attacked with 35 kilometers left and were caught inside the last kilometer, and Trentin won the sprint from Laporte and Albert Withen Philipsen.
He has not won a race since. “Yes, it was my last victory, which is unlikely for me because that means I haven’t won again since then,” he said this week. He broke a collarbone at the Tour of Flanders in early April and says the injuries that followed look to be behind him. His Tudor team also starts Stefan Küng.
Tim Merlier starts Paris-Tours for the first time
Merlier won three stages of the Tour de France this summer and has never ridden Paris-Tours. His Soudal Quick-Step team also has Jasper Stuyven, third at Paris-Roubaix in April, and Yves Lampaert. A sprinter needs the race to come back together, and it rarely has: of the eight editions since the vineyard tracks were added in 2018, only the one in 2022 ended in a bunch sprint, which Arnaud Démare won.
Jasper Philipsen, third in 2024, will not start. The organizer announced him on October 1, and he is not on its start list. The seven Alpecin-Premier Tech riders include Florian Sénéchal. Arnaud De Lie won a French one-day race in 2023, 2024 and 2025, first the Grand Prix du Morbihan, then Tro Bro Leon, then the Bretagne Classic, and has yet to win this one. Søren Wærenskjold, another Tour stage winner this summer, sprints for Uno-X Mobility.
Which French riders can win Paris-Tours 2026?
Laporte won in 2024, the most recent French victory, and was second last year. Dorian Godon of Netcompany Ineos comes from Italy, where he won the Gran Piemonte in a sprint on Thursday, his seventh win of the season. Lapeira, one of the two riders caught in the last kilometer a year ago, won the Coppa Agostoni on October 4. The other, Gruel, rides for Groupama-FDJ United beside Romain Grégoire, the French champion, and Bastien Tronchon, who won a stage of the Vuelta a España.
Paris-Tours 2026 start list: five former winners
The organizer’s start list has 24 teams of seven riders. Five of the riders have won the race: Trentin, Laporte, Riley Sheehan, Fernando Gaviria and John Degenkolb. Sheehan won in 2023, the first American to do so, beating Lewis Askey, who rides beside him at NSN this year. Sheehan also won the Circuit de Wallonie in May. Gaviria, the winner in 2016, rides for Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, and Degenkolb, who won in 2013, for Picnic PostNL.
Mathias Vacek, second in 2024, starts for Lidl-Trek with Edward Theuns, who was second in 2022. Modern Adventure Pro Cycling, a new American team, is one of the 24.
What time does Paris-Tours 2026 start, and where can you watch it?
The race starts at 12:10 p.m. in France, 6:10 a.m. Eastern, and should finish around 11:00 a.m. Eastern. Peacock’s stream in the United States begins at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, about half an hour before the organizer’s schedule has the race at the first climb and the first vineyard track. In the United Kingdom the race is on HBO Max, and in Australia on SBS On Demand. The how to watch page lists the broadcasters by country, and the Paris-Tours race page has the winners and the history.