New Zealander Laurence Pithie of Team Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe won the 108th edition of the Tour of Cologne after 191 kilometers and 4 hours, 12 minutes, and 36 seconds. In a dramatic sprint finish, the 23-year-old led a trio across the finish line that had broken away from the peloton a good 55 kilometers before the finish, before tackling the Sand mountain classification and the cobblestone climb to Bensberg Castle for the second time. From there on, he led alongside Britain’s Fred Wright and Belgium’s Aime de Gendt, holding a lead of up to one minute over the peloton, which included the big favorite Jordi Meeus from Belgium, who, like Pithie, rides for Team Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe.
So it was up to the other teams to bring the peloton back to the finish at Rheinauhafen for the sprinters in their own ranks. But they didn’t succeed. The leading trio fought for every second. A good 20 kilometers from the finish, their lead had already shrunk to ten seconds, but the peloton couldn’t get any closer. In the end, Laurence Pithie triumphed ahead of Fred Wright, who had announced even before the start that he and his Pinarello-Q36.5 team intended to make the race so difficult that only a small group would make it to the final sprint. Third place went to his teammate Aime de Gendt, who did not contest the sprint for the win.
Tobias Müller of the Unibet Rose Rockets finished fourth as the top German rider, winning the peloton sprint six seconds behind the winner, ahead of Jordi Meeus. “It was a super-important race for our team,” said Laurence Pithie of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe at the finish. “We had several cards we could play. One of them was Jordi, of course, but when I was at the front, I had the option to win. I’m very happy to have pulled it off. The last ten kilometers were very tough.”
The first part of Rund um Köln was dominated by a five-man breakaway group that had broken away from the peloton 160 kilometers before the finish. The two Germans, Ole Theiler from Team REMBE® rad-net and Silas Koech from Team Lotto Kern-Haus Outlet Montabaur, rode together with Rik van der Wal (Netherlands/EEW-VDK Cyclingteam), Joshua Amos Gudnitz (Denmark/Team Coloquick), and Michael Kukrle (Czech Republic/Kasper Crypto4Me) for nearly 100 kilometers, building a lead of up to two minutes. With 60 kilometers to go, the five were caught, but Silas Koech ultimately rewarded himself by winning the sprint and mountain classifications at the 2026 Tour of Cologne.
During this phase of the race, Cologne’s cycling star Nils Pollit put in a lot of work in the chase with the German national team before eventually finishing 54th with the peloton. “The race went well. We rode aggressively with the national team early on and put in a good performance. In the end, it was all up to Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe; they played their cards right and deserved to win,” said the Cologne native, who won a stage at the Tour de France in 2021.
