The 2026 Tour de France opens July 4 with a team time trial in Barcelona and features eight mountain stages plus five summit finishes, including a return to Alpe d’Huez. This profile creates broad opportunity for both general-classification leaders and dedicated climbers to accumulate King of the Mountains points through breakaways and selective attacks. Pogačar and Vingegaard enter with proven mountain pedigree and the likelihood of contesting the decisive climbs together, while specialists such as Lenny Martinez, Valentin Paret-Peintre and Richard Carapaz are positioned to target the jersey directly on summit stages. The depth of contenders—spanning Seixas, Evenepoel, Lipowitz, Ayuso, del Toro and others—combined with the absence of any single rider’s monopoly on the high-point finishes, keeps implied probabilities tightly clustered across the field.