2026 Eneco Tour preview: Laporte returns to defend as race takes a new name

The race ran for the first time in 2025 as the NIBC Tour of Holland, reviving a name that had been dormant since 2004 and a lineage going back to 1948. 

Christophe Laporte won the overall from Lukáš Kubiš and Jakob Söderqvist, with Ethan Hayter taking two stages.

Both Laporte and Söderqvist return this week as part of a strong start list in what will be the final outing on the road for most of the peloton this season. 

The 2026 edition features six stages, including both a prologue and an individual time trial.

Tuesday opens with a 3.1-kilometre prologue in Den Haag, short enough that it rewards pure speed and separates the field by a handful of seconds, which matters only because of what comes two days later. Stage 1 on Wednesday is a 120-kilometre circuit in and around Ede, the shortest road stage of the week and the likeliest sprint unless the wind gets up, which in the Netherlands in October is not a remote possibility.

Thursday’s 13.6-kilometre individual time trial in Tilburg is the decisive day. That distance on flat Brabant roads is long enough to produce a minute between a specialist and a sprinter, and on a six-day race with one summit finish it is likely to be the margin at the end of the week.

Friday takes the race 110.5 kilometres from Sittard to Watersley, into the Limburg hills and the only part of the Netherlands with meaningful gradient, the same terrain the Amstel Gold Race uses. 

Saturday’s 144.8 kilometres from Hoogeveen finish on the VAM-berg, an artificial hill in Drenthe built on a capped landfill, long used by the Ronde van Drenthe and steep enough to split a race despite being measured in hundreds of metres rather than kilometres. Anyone needing to overturn a time trial deficit has to do it there.

Sunday closes with 149.2 kilometres starting and finishing in Arnhem, the longest stage of the week, on roads near the Posbank and the Veluwezoom.

Christophe Laporte (Visma | Lease a Bike) defends the title he won last year when the race ran as the NIBC Tour of Holland. The Frenchman can sprint from a reduced group, survive the Limburg day and hold his own over 13.6 kilometres against the clock, which is the exact combination this route asks for. 

Team Visma | Lease a Bike also brings Edoardo Affini and Victor Campenaerts, both capable of winning Thursday outright, which gives them three ways to take the overall. Filippo Fiorelli, Menno Huising and Aldo Taillieu complete the squad.

Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) was third here last year and arrives as the most improved rider in the field. The Swede won the under-23 world time trial title in Kigali in 2025, took the Tour de Hongrie overall in May and rode both events at the Worlds in Montréal. On a race decided by a flat time trial, he is the most obvious threat to Visma.

For the sprints, Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) is the fastest man entered by some distance, having won the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen in September from deep in the bunch. He will not contest the overall, but stages 1 and 5 are his if he turns up in form. 

Dylan Groenewegen features the Unibet Rose Rockets alongside last year's runner-up Lukáš Kubiš. Groenewegen is chasing his first victory since the Ronde Van Brugge in March, when he also won the Bredene Koksijde Classic and GP Jean-Pierre Monseré in the space of five days.

Pavel Bittner rides his last races for Picnic PostNL before joining Pinarello Q36.5. The Czech arrives after taking victory in his last outing at Paris-Chauny at the end of September.

Gerben Thijssen leads an Alpecin-Premier Tech squad built for the flat days with Florian Sénéchal, Tim Marsman, Simon Goossens and Sente Sentjens. 

Davide Donati currently rides for Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies but packs such a punch that the 21-year-old has already racked up four professional victories as well as winning Paris-Roubaix Espoirs this season. 

Former Visma rider David Dekker lines up for BEAT CC p/b Saxo, quick enough to feature in a bunch finish despite dropping to Continental level. He will be aspiring to reach the level that saw him finish runner-up on a stage of the Giro d'Italia back in 2023.

Lotto Intermarché, TotalEnergies, Unibet Rose Rockets, Team Flanders-Baloise, Azerion/Villa Valkenburg, EEW-VDK, Metec-SOLARWATT and VolkerWessels complete the fifteen teams.