Tadej Pogacar took a huge step towards reclaiming the Tour de France title as he produced another superb ride to secure a second straight stage win.
As the race headed into the Pyrenees this weekend, the two big mountain stages were seen as a chance for Pogacar’s general classification rivals to potentially close the gap on the race leader.
But the two-time champion soloed to victory on stage 14 and followed that up by dismissing his competition on a gruelling climb to the stage 15 finish in Plateau de Beille.
Pogacar, 25, left Jonas Vingegaard behind to claim his 14th stage win by one minute eight seconds, while Remco Evenepoel crossed almost three minutes down in third.
Vingegaard, the two-time defending champion, now trails the Slovenian by three minutes nine seconds, while Evenepoel is five minutes nine seconds off the overall lead in third.
Sunday’s 197.7km mountain stage from Loudenvielle promised to be one of the toughest days on the Tour.
It featured four category one climbs, with a hors categorie climb – the toughest – to finish, and 4,831 metres of elevation gain – 9% of this year’s total.
It was also hotter, and Pogacar admits he usually struggles in the heat, so in a bid to hit back after Saturday’s win for UAE Team Emirates, Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team pushed the pace for most of the day.
The Dane’s team-mate Matteo Jorgenson led the peloton up a brutal final climb, before handing over to Vingegaard to try to crack Pogacar.
They caught the breakaway group with about 9km remaining and Vingegaard, who was seriously injured in a crash three months ago, was out of his saddle with about 5km left.
The Dane glanced back to see if that effort had had any impact on Pogacar and that was a signal to the race leader that, in fact, it was Vingegaard who was at his limit.
Like on Saturday, Pogacar sensed the opportunity to hit the front and he continued to go clear to claim his third stage win on this year’s Tour and give himself a commanding lead heading into Monday’s rest day.
British sprinter Mark Cavendish, the Tour’s all-time stage record-holder with 35, made the cut-off time with less than two minutes to spare to keep alive his hopes of securing a final stage win in his farewell to the race.
