Tadej Pogacar took victory in the first mountain stage of the 2024 Tour de France, from Pinerolo to Valloire, after outclimbing defending Tour champion, Jonas Vingegaard, at stage four’s summit of the Col du Galibier.
The two rivals locked horns once more, but this time, UAE Team Emirates leader Pogacar had the upper hand, climbing and descending faster than the Dane, to open up a 35-second lead on the high-speed drop to the finish line.
With bonus seconds, Pogacar now leads the race overall, from Soudal Quick-Step’s Remco Evenepoel, by 45 seconds.
Whatever work Team Visma’s Vingegaard may have put in on his descending during his enforced lay-off from racing, from mid-April to late June, it wasn’t enough and the Slovenian slalomed through the serpentine bends to put distance on the chasing group, led in by Evenepoel, with Vingegaard in his wake, by 35 seconds.
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For Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz, his first day racing in the yellow jersey turned sour in the final kilometres of the giant Col du Galibier, when he definitively lost ground. Carapaz, of EF Education Easy Post, finished over five minutes behind Pogacar, his hopes of a podium finish dashed in just 25 kilometres of racing.
Pogacar’s attack, when it finally came, on the approach to the top of the final climb, again drew a sharp response from Vingegaard, but this time his acceleration did enough to distance the Dane in the final hairpin bends to the Galibier’s summit.
After that, with the Slovenian on the rampage, it was all downhill to the finish line. Now an already weary Vingegaard and his underpowered team have to make sure his Tour campaign doesn’t follow the same trajectory.
Britain’s Adam Yates (Team Emirates) and 2018 winner Geraint Thomas (Ineos) finished 14th and 15th respectively on the stage, 2min 42sec off the lead. Yates is 13th overall. – Guardian
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