Slovenian 5’03” ahead on GC to Vingegaard
Tadej Pogačar honoured once again his yellow jersey at the Tour de France, this time by winning stage 19, Embrun-Isola 2000 (144,6 km with the climbs of the Col de la Bonnette and the summit arrival).
The Slovenian rider attacked from the group of favourites at 8,7km to the arrival, after that UAE Team Emirates had worked perfectly for controlling the gap from the main breakaway of the day.
When the yellow jersey accelerated, there were still six former members of the breakaway preceding him, with Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) leading the race with 2’40” on Pogačar.
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) could not follow UAE Team Emirates’ captain, who began a sort of mountain time trial that saw him overtake all the six riders preceding him: he was the solo leader at 1900 meters to the arrival and from that moment he could enjoy each stroke of the pedal that gave him his 4th stage victory in the Grande Boucle 2024.
Pogačar: “Now I can confirm that La Bonette is a very scary climb to race. At least in training you can skip the final kilometre! I’m super happy I had good legs today. We trained here the whole month between the Giro and the Tour. It was a very hard training camp with no easy days, as we had to climb every day.
My teammates and I have talked already of how badly we wanted to race this day, and we raced as we said, setting everything up to the point when I attacked. It was perfect. I was a little bit empty in the final two kilometres of the stage. When I caught Carapaz and Simon Yates, I felt I was already on my limit. Then I saw Matteo and pushed through to overtake him at great speed. That killed my legs, and I was afraid that he might come back to outsprint me. He was very strong today, as was the rest of the breakaway. Chapeau to all of them.”
Second place of Jorgenson at 21”, João Almeida was 7th at 2’ and the Portuguese athlete strengthened his 4th position in the GC.
Pogačar will face stage 20 (132,8 km from Nice to the summit arrival of the Col de la Couillole, facing the climbs of the Col de Braus, the Col du Turini, the Col de la Colmiane) with 5’03” on Vingegaard ad 7’01” on Evenepoel.
Stage 19 results
1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) 4h04’03”
2. Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) +21”
3. Simon Yates (Jayco Alula) +40”
General classification after stage 19
1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) 78h49’20”
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +5’03”
3. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) +7’01”
4. João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +15’07”
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