Tour de France leader Tadej Pogacar has achieved another extraordinary solo victory on the mountainous 15th stage from Loudenvielle to Plateau De Beille, moving ever closer to his third overall triumph.
Slovenian Pogacar outpaced 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 of this year’s Tour and his second in a row.
Vingegaard attacked with just under 10 km to go and Pogacar stuck to his rear wheel as the two passed the leading group and an exciting duel loomed until the finish.
But with 5.3 km to go, Vingegaard knew he was out of steam and looked desperately over his shoulder at Pogacar. The Slovenian immediately made his attack, overtaking the Visma–Lease a Bike rider and disappearing into the distance.
He took a win that puts him 3:09 minutes ahead of Vingegaard going into the final week and is now very likely to secure him a double victory in the Tour and the Giro d’Italia.
Another brutal day saw Jai Hindley reclaim his position as leading Australian and now sit 18th overall, while Jack Haig had a tough day and eventually dropped to 27th overall.
“I could never have imagined such a result after the second week. I am super happy with my form. Today was super hot and it was a really tough day. I always struggle with the heat and the team did a super good job to cool me down,” Pogacar told reporters.
“When we reached the bottom of the last climb, I was a little bit at the limit as Jonas tried to drop me, but I could see that he was starting to suffer a little.
“The last time he tried to drop me, I could see he didn’t have the legs to reach the top, so I tried it alone.”
“Pogacar was stronger than Jonas. Jonas did a super good job, but we have an opponent who is stronger, so hats off to Tadej, hats off to Team UAE,” said Visma’s sports director Grischa Niermann.
“They have a good lead now, a good lead. We have to accept that. At the moment we can only be happy and proud of the performance we have shown and also accept that someone is better.”
Remco Evenepoel, third in the overall standings, finished almost three minutes behind the Slovenian, and the Soudal-QuickStep rider is now over five minutes behind Pogacar in the overall standings.
Pogacar’s dominance was such that half an hour after the Team UAE Emirates rider finished the stage, only 36 riders crossed the finish line.
Monday is a rest day and the Tour continues on Tuesday with stage 16, a 189km ride for the sprinters from Gruissan to Nimes.