‘This one is for him’ – Hugo Houle dedicates Tour de France stage win to brother

Hugo Houle took an emotional victory on stage 16 of the Tour de France while Tadej Pogacar was unable to land any punches on Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey as the race moved into the Pyrenees.

Houle rode clear from a 29-strong breakaway to finish solo in the 179km stage from Carcassonne to Foix, a superb way to take his first career win in any race and Canada’s first Tour victory since Steve Bauer – now Houle’s Israel-PremierTech sporting director – won stage two in 1988.

But more significantly for the 31-year-old Houle, this was the fulfilment of what had become his primary career goal – to celebrate the all-too-short life of his late brother Pierrik.

As youngsters, Hugo and Pierrik spent their summer mornings together watching the Tour on television, but Pierrik was killed by a drunk driver in 2012 while out running, and never got to see his brother take part in cycling’s biggest race.

Houle pointed to the sky as he crossed the line and fought to hold back tears during his post-race interview.

“I means a lot to me,” he said. “I had one dream, to win a stage for my brother who died when I turned pro. This one is for him. I worked for 10 years and today I got my win for him so it’s incredible. I don’t know what to say, I’m just so happy.”

Houle crested the final climb of the day, the Mur de Peguere, with an advantage of 26 seconds over Matteo Jorgenson and was holding that advantage on the descent into Foix before the American crashed with a little over 13km to go.

Jorgenson, blood dripping from his elbow, got back on and caught Houle’s team-mate and fellow Canadian Michael Woods, but had to settle for fourth on the day, behind Valentin Madouas and Woods.

“I’ve never won a race so I guess it’s the right place to