Pogacar keeps Tour de France lead with stage win

COL DE LA COUILLOLE, France — Tadej Pogacar equaled one Tour de France mark Saturday and will likely match another Sunday.

Yellow jersey-holder Pogacar edged defending champion Jonas Vingegaard at the top of Col De La Couillole to win the 20th and penultimate stage and add even more seconds to his considerable lead.

It was a fifth stage victory this month for the two-time champion, who stretched out his arms as he crossed the line before holding up his fingers to signal his number of wins.

The only other man to have won five mountain stages in one Tour was Gino Bartali in 1948.

“If you told me this before the Tour, I would not have believed you,” Pogacar said. “It’s out of this world actually. I’m so happy.

“[Five stages] is more than enough. One would be enough. Just the yellow jersey would be enough. But it is how it is. You don’t brake in cycling.”

Pogacar attacked from the leading duo with 150 meters remaining and beat Vingegaard by seven seconds.

It will likely be the same positions on the final podium Sunday after Pogacar extended his lead to 5 minutes, 14 seconds, over two-time defending champ Vingegaard, his closest rival.

Third-place Remco Evenepoel lost even more time. He crossed the line in fourth, behind Richard Carapaz, and lost 53 seconds to Pogacar to fall 8:04 behind the Slovenian star.

The Tour ends Sunday on the French Riviera with a 21-mile time trial from Monaco to Nice, and not in Paris as it usually does because of the Olympic Games.

Barring incident, Pogacar is almost certain to reclaim the Tour crown from Vingegaard and in doing so secure a rare Giro d’Italia and Tour de France double. The last rider to win both in the same year was the late Marco Pantani in 1998.

“I enjoyed [the stage] very much,” Pogacar said. “It didn’t go as we planned, but I couldn’t be happier with that, another stage win. Just one more day … and tomorrow I think I’m going to enjoy it as well.”

After his explosive attack the previous day, Pogacar said he would not try to win Saturday’s stage, a short but brutal 83-mile route from Nice that featured three hard Category 1 ascents.

Indeed, the UAE Emirates rider just stayed with the rest of the reduced group of title contenders on the daunting 10-mile ramp up the Col de la Couillole until Vingegaard made his move and Pogacar sat on the Dane’s wheel.

They swept up the remnants of the breakaway and caught up to the front two of Carapaz and Enric Mas with about 1.5 miles remaining.

First Mas and then Carapaz were dropped, setting up an intriguing battle in the final kilometer between the two cycling stars, but it was only a matter of time before Pogacar launched his sprint.

Moments after crossing the line, Pogacar pulled up and waited for Vingegaard to embrace him.

Vingegaard was hospitalized for nearly two weeks in April following a high-speed crash in the Tour of the Basque Country. He resumed competitive racing only on this Tour.

“In some kind of way I was hoping he would give it to me,” Vingegaard said. “But I knew already that I had been riding so hard, if he would sprint I would have no chance as I was already on my limit.

“But you can always hope. But it’s cycling, that’s how it is. I don’t blame him at all, I would do probably the same. I’m just happy with how I performed today and how I could come back from yesterday.”