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TADEJ Pogacar continued to claw back time on overall leader Jonas Vingegaard with a late, brutal uphill sprint to drop the defending champion in the finale of yesterday’s 13th stage of the Tour de France at the top of the Col du Grand Colombier.
The Slovenian, Tour winner in 2020 and 2021, stood on the pedals inside the last kilometre and launched a furious sprint with Denmark’s Vingegaard holding his wheel before losing the slipstream and four seconds on the line.
Pogacar, who has now beaten Vingegaard in the last three mountain stages, took third place on the day, 50 seconds behind Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski, the best of the breakaway riders.
The 24-year-old, who picked up four bonus seconds, trails Vingegaard by nine seconds in the general classification.
His UAE Emirates team mates set the pace at the bottom of the climb, chasing the breakaway riders, but Kwiatkowski perfectly managed his stamina to give Ineos-Grenadiers their first win in this year’s Tour, a year to the day after Tom Pidcock on L’Alpe d’Huez.
Belgian Maxim Van Gils was the only other breakaway rider to hold off Pogacar as he zig-zagged over the line for second, his face a pale mask of pain.
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