Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar won the 14th stage of the Tour de France, described as 'unforgettable,' thereby extending his lead over Jonas Vingegaard by four minutes and thirty seconds.
In the 113th edition of the Tour de France, amid a large crowd in the Vosges region, Pogacar won a challenging mountain stage. He received the jersey for the best climber. His team, UAE Team Emirates - XRG, celebrated the success on the podium.
Pogacar, a 27-year-old athlete from Slovenia, thanked the fans, noting that the spectacle was truly unforgettable. He emphasized the mutual respect among all participants in the race and highly praised the quality of the competition presented.
The four-time champion demonstrated his superiority once again by launching a powerful attack closer to the finish. This victory marks his twenty-fifth stage win in the Tour de France since his debut in 2020.
Interesting events occurred among the participants in the battle for secondary places. Frenchman Paul Seychas earned four bonus seconds, overtaking Pogacar by 38 seconds, which allowed him to climb to fourth place in the general classification and denied Spaniard Juan Ayuso the white jersey of best young rider by only three seconds.
Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel maintained third place in the general classification, finishing just four seconds behind Vingegaard, despite being the first of seven contenders on the final climb, Col du Haag, which is 11.2 km long.
The gap between Evenepoel and Seychas on the podium is only 15 seconds. Nevertheless, the gap between Vingegaard in second place and Del Toro in seventh has now narrowed to 1 minute and 20 seconds, while Florian Lipovic from the Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe team, Evenepoel's teammate, took sixth place.
More than thirty riders started an attack on the first climb of the stage, Grand Ballon, which is 21.5 km long. However, six riders separated from the group at the summit, and four of them continued forward to Col du Haag.
The remaining part of the group was absorbed by the peloton, led by the UAE Emirates-XRG team on the Ballon d'Alsace climb. Riders battled in variable weather, alternating between warm sun and heavy rain, which was a relief after the hot first ten days of the race.
Six riders managed to create a maximum gap of three minutes, but the UAE team successfully controlled this pace. The first rider to drop out of the breakaway was Irishman Ben Healy, followed by Norwegian Anders Johansen; his brother Tobias remained. At the foot of the final climb, the leaders had a lead of about 1 minute and 20 seconds over the peloton of approximately 35 riders.
Johansen and Richard Karapaz let two companions go within a kilometer of the start of the climb, but Vingegaard's acceleration allowed them to be caught 2.5 km from the summit. After this, Pogacar executed his inevitable winning attempt 1.5 km from the summit, leaving only a fast 6-kilometer stretch to the finish.
Tadej Pogacar secured a convincing victory in the third stage of the Tour de France, demonstrating mastery in the Pyrenees, which allowed him to reduce his deficit to Jonas Vingegaard and claim the leading yellow jersey.
Current champion Tadej Pogacar won the third stage of the Tour de France on Monday, taking the 'special' yellow jersey from his rival Jonas Vingegaard. Although both athletes had equal time, Pogacar took the lead due to better finishing positions in the first three stages of the race.
The thirty-year-old athlete achieved his 22nd stage victory in the Tour de France and his tenth victory in the Pyrenees. He finished two seconds ahead of the Dane and earned an additional four bonus seconds compared to Vingegaard, thereby eliminating his six-second deficit at the start of the day.
Pogacar noted that winning the yellow jersey is a dream for any cyclist regardless of age. He added that every time he can put it on his shoulders again, it feels special.
In this stage, which was 196 km long, starting in Granollers, Spain, and finishing in Les Angèles in the French Pyrenees, former Giro d'Italia winner Richard Carapaz overtook young French prodigy Paul Seix, finishing third in the same time as Vingegaard. Despite organizers' requests to stay away due to severe forest fires 70 km from the finish, many spectators gathered along the roads in France.
Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel finished eighth with a four-second deficit, maintaining third overall place, but lost 23 seconds relative to the leader. Isaac Del Toro, winner of Sunday's second stage, holds fourth overall place with a 24-second deficit, finishing eighth. Also in the top six leaders are Spanish Juan Ayuso (27 seconds) and Seix (48 seconds).
After Pogacar allowed his teammates from UAE Team Emirates, Del Toro, to win on Mount Monjuic in Barcelona on Sunday, the Spaniard led the team for a decisive sprint to the finish this time. Pogacar made it clear that he aimed for both the stage win and the yellow jersey thanks to the dominant victory.
He explained that he gained extra energy in the finale thanks to Isaac: 'Thanks to Isaac, I got some extra strength in the finale today.' He continued: 'He gave more than one hundred percent in the final climb, and the whole team too. In the middle of the stage, we decided that we could compete for the stage win, and I am very, very happy that we started the Tour this way.'
On a day that looked perfect for an escape, UAE Team Emirates left no chance for anyone else. After 70 km, an eighteen-man breakaway formed, stretching the maximum advantage to three minutes. At that moment, UAE Team Emirates took over the pace. They halved the gap when the breakaway reached the Category 1 climb Col du Toses, 9.3 km long, located just over halfway through the stage. The breakaway reduced to six men at the summit, and 34 km before the finish, the French pair Alex Bodin and Nicolas Prodhomme went off on their own. Prodhomme held on for another 8 km, while Bodin, who had already achieved enough for the mountain points jersey, was caught 12 km from the finish. UAE Team Emirates controlled the race until the last short climb in Les Angèles, and Pogacar completed the job.
