Pogacar homes in on Tour triumph with more solo magic
Tour de France leader Tadej Pogacar has delivered another extraordinary solo victory on the mountainous 15th stage from Loudenvielle to Plateau De Beille, moving ever closer to a third overall triumph.
Slovenian Pogacar dropped champion Jonas Vingegaard on the final climb of the 198km stage on Sunday, finishing one minute and eight seconds ahead of the Dane, his closest rival, to win his third stage on this year’s Tour and second in a row.
Vingegaard attacked with just over 10km left, with Pogacar sticking to his wheel as the pair surged ahead of the leading group to set up what promised to be an enthralling duel to the finish.
But with 5.3 km to go, Vingegaard knew he had run out of gas and looked forlornly over his shoulder at Pogacar and the Slovenian immediately made his move, overtaking the Visma–Lease a Bike rider before disappearing into the distance.
He powered to a victory that leaves him now 3:09 ahead of Vingegaard going into the final week, with the Tour-Giro d’Italia double now odds-on to be his.
On another brutal day, Jai Hindley regained his position as leading Australian, now in 18th place in the general classification, while Jack Haig had a hard day and ended up slipping back to 27th overall.
“I would never imagine this kind of outcome after the second week. I’m super happy with my shape. Today was super hot and it was a really hard day. I always struggle with the heat and the team did a super good job with cooling me down,” Pogacar told reporters.
“When we came to the bottom of the last climb I was at the limit a little bit when Jonas tried to drop me, but I could see that he was starting to suffer a little bit.
“When he tried to drop me the last time, I could see that he doesn’t have the legs to go to the top, so I tried on my own.”
“Pogacar was stronger than Jonas. Jonas did a super good job but we have an opponent that is stronger, so chapeau to Tadej, chapeau to team UAE,” Visma’s sports director Grischa Niermann said.
“They have a good margin, a good lead now. We have to accept that, for the moment we can only be happy and be proud of the performance that we showed and also accept that someone is better.”
Remco Evenepoel, who is third in the general classification, finished nearly three minutes behind the Slovenian, and the Soudal-QuickStep rider is now over five minutes behind Pogacar in the overall standings.
Such was Pogacar’s dominance that only 36 riders had crossed the finish line half an hour after the Team UAE Emirates rider had completed the stage.
Monday is a rest day and the Tour continues on Tuesday with stage 16, a 189km ride, one for the sprinters, from Gruissan to Nimes.
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