These 2 Tour de France rule changes could reshape the 2026 race

The 2026 Tour de France sees key rules changes to the team time trial and points competition that could impact the early general classification and see sprinters once again dominate the green jersey.

While the basic format of the Tour de France has been unchanged for more than 100 years – the rider with the lowest cumulative time at the finish is the winner – organisers frequently tweak the rules to ensure the race remains a fair and, ultimately, exciting spectacle.

This year’s race sees the return of a team time trial for the first time since 2019, with a new format that could significantly change team tactics on stage one.

Meanwhile, organisers have sought to temper Tadej Pogačar's dominance of the race by changing the points distribution of the green jersey competition which, in turn, could have a significant impact on how a lot of the race is contested.

A team time trial with a difference

Perhaps the biggest change will be seen in the opening-stage team time trial in Barcelona on Saturday.

Gone is the old format, where the riders took the time of the fourth rider in the team when they crossed the line, and in comes the one used at Paris-Nice in recent years, in which the team’s time for the stage is taken from the first rider in the team to cross the line. The other riders in the team take their own time when crossing the line as their GC time.

In Paris-Nice, the effect has been for a team to hammer themselves into the ground before launching their team leader into the closing stages, in a sort of long lead-out. Netcompany–Ineos won on that occasion, while the revised format was also used at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, with Visma-Lease a Bike taking the honours.

Some have been critical of the change; Visma-Lease a Bike boss Richard Plugge thinks it removes the ‘team’ aspect of the team time trial – although he made those comments before the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. 

At the Tour de France, ASO wants to prevent a whole team dominating the top of the GC on the opening stage, and has plotted a route to complement the new format. 

Two short climbs in the final 4km will see teams having to decide when to unleash their Pogačar, Vingegaard or Evenepoel before the line. 

The 19.6km test concludes with the Côte de Montjuïc (1.1km at 5.1%) and a final 800m ramp to Barcelona's Olympic stadium, with an average gradient of 7%.

The result will be spectacular, combining the aerodynamic art of a traditional team trial with a tactical conundrum that should make for captivating viewing.

A green jersey shake-up for sprinters

There’s also a shake-up in the points jersey classification.

On the five designated ‘sprint’ stages (stages 5, 7, 8, 11 and 12), the points on offer to the winner have increased to 70, rather than the usual 50. There will be 25 points awarded to the winner of the intermediate sprint on those stages, up from 20.

All this is designed to make the green jersey a genuine fight between the best sprinters. The changes are also likely to make sprint stages faster from much earlier in the day, with teams chasing breakaways harder to contest the extra points on offer.

While the 2025 green jersey was taken by sprinter Jonathan Milan, who also won two stages, his closest challenger was none other than Tadej Pogačar. He finished ahead of fast men such as Biniam Girmay and Tim Merlier, such was Pogačar’s dominance of the race.

Pogačar has won the yellow, white and polka-dot jerseys at the Tour de France and ASO doesn’t want the Slovenian superstar claiming green by accident.

Eddy Merckx is the only rider to have won the yellow, polka-dot and green jerseys in a single Tour de France (a clean sweep achieved in 1969), but, more than 50 years later, ASO wants the world’s best sprinters focused on the points competition, not Pogačar who wants to continue chipping away at Merckx’s records.

Whether the changes succeed remains to be seen, but they should make two key parts of the race less predictable and more exciting: the battle for the first yellow jersey in Barcelona and the fight for green across the three weeks to come.