Jarno Widar, 20, wins the Tour of Guangxi on the last climb of the WorldTour season
The Belgian beat Tom Pidcock on the summit finish at NongLa on 18 October to take the stage and the overall title by nine seconds, 12 days after his first professional win.
Jarno Widar won the Tour of Guangxi on 18 October, taking the final stage to the hilltop finish at NongLa and with it the overall title, his first WorldTour stage race victory.
The 20-year-old Belgian, who rides for Lotto-Intermarché, finished six seconds ahead of Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) on the 165.8 km stage from Yizhou. Louis Barré (Visma | Lease a Bike) was third, 10 seconds down. In the final standings Widar finished nine seconds clear of Pidcock, with Barré third at 16 seconds, according to the results published by Cyclingnews and ProCyclingUK.
The six-day race in southern China is the last event of the men’s WorldTour season.
One climb to decide it
The first five stages had suited the sprinters. Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) won the opening stage and stage 4, and went into the final day in the leader’s jersey, 10 seconds ahead of stage 2 winner Frits Biesterbos (Picnic PostNL), Cyclingnews reported. Milan Fretin (Cofidis) won stage 5 in Yizhou, a stage on which Magnier crashed in the final kilometre.
That left only the closing climb to NongLa, 3.2 km at an average of 7.3 per cent and the race’s only uphill finish, to settle the general classification.
The early breakaway was caught in the last few kilometres. Joseph Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5), Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ United) and Peter Øxenberg (Netcompany Ineos) all tried to get away on the climb, but none of the moves held.
The race was decided in the last few hundred metres. Barré attacked from the group of favourites and only Tom Pidcock and Widar could follow. Pidcock then went for the line with about 100 metres to go, but Widar came past him and won by a few bike lengths. Marco Brenner (Tudor Pro Cycling) was fourth on the stage, one second behind Barré.
Pidcock’s familiar rival
It was the second time in under a fortnight that Widar had beaten Pidcock in a close finish. On 6 October he took the first professional win of his career at Tre Valli Varesine in Italy, jumping early in a three-man sprint against Pidcock and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike). Pidcock had also been runner-up at the Giro dell’Emilia shortly before, Cyclingnews noted.
Widar turned professional at the start of 2026 after a string of strong results as an under-23 rider. “These are my first victories on the WorldTour,” he said after the stage, according to Tour Magazin, which also reported that he had needed a toilet stop with about 20 km to go and had to work his way back up from the rear of the peloton.
For Pidcock, second place continued a run of near misses in the final weeks of the season. Brenner was fourth overall, 21 seconds down, and Martin Tjøtta (Uno-X Mobility) fifth at 22 seconds.
What comes next
With Guangxi finished, the men’s road season is over for the WorldTour teams. The next big date on the calendar is the presentation of the 2027 Tour de France route in Paris on 22 October.
