Pogacar attacks in first major mountain stage of Tour de France and takes back yellow jersey

Pogacar showed confidence as he reached speeds of almost 90 km/h on his descent of the 2,642-metre Col du Galibier, opening up a lead of almost a minute on his biggest rival, defending champion Jonas Vingegaard.

“This was more or less the plan and we executed it really well,” Pogacar said after his 12th stage win in the Tour. “I wanted to go hard today. I know this stage very well. I have trained here for many days. It felt like a home race.

“I was confident at the start, I had good legs and I had to try. I know the descent, but I was a bit surprised when I saw a wet road in the first few corners. So it was a bit scary.”

The roads were slippery from melting snowdrifts.

Vingegaard did his best to limit the damage but finished the fourth stage 37 seconds behind as the race re-entered France after the opening phase in Italy.

The Galibier lived up to expectations and was the first decisive battleground of the Tour. The previous leader Richard Carapaz had to drop out on the gruelling climb.

Pogacar has delivered similar performances throughout the season.

He won four of the five races he entered before the Tour and took 14 victories in 31 racing days, including prestigious trophies at the Giro d’Italia, Strade Bianche and Liège–Bastogne–Liège.

Pogacar, who also wore yellow after stage 2, is aiming for a rare Giro-Tour double after dominating the Italian Grand Tour in May. He is also targeting his third Tour title after victories in 2020 and 2021. He was runner-up to Vingegaard the last two years.

The last rider to win the Giro and the Tour in the same year was Marco Pantani in 1998.

Tour rookie Remco Evenepoel, the Spanish Vuelta winner and 2022 world champion, finished second in the stage, 35 seconds behind Pogacar. Juan Ayuso, Pogacar’s teammate in the UAE, was third with the same time.

Primoz Roglic finished fourth and Vingegaard fifth.

Pogacar had a total lead of 45 seconds over Evenepoel and 50 seconds over Vingegaard.

“It’s never fun to lose time, but to be honest I expected bigger time differences after four stages,” said Vingegaard.

While Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates team kept a high pace throughout the climb, only Vingegaard and a handful of other riders were able to reach the top of the Galibier.

Pogacar then attacked with 800 meters to go and created a lead of about 10 seconds over Vingegaard at the top. There were about 20 kilometers of descent to the finish and Pogacar extended his lead over the more cautious Vingegaard, who had suffered a high-speed crash in April that broke his collarbone and ribs and left him with a collapsed lung.

Vingegaard came second at the top and Evenepoel came third.

“Let’s not forget that (Vingegaard) had a really bad crash three months ago and maybe the last bit of confidence is not there yet on the descent,” said Grischa Niermann, the sports director of Vingegaard’s Visma team. “Cycling is also downhill, not only uphill.”

At the finish, Pogacar had plenty of time to beat his chest and raise his fists in the air to celebrate his victory.

The route from Pinerolo, Italy, to Valloire was relatively short at 140km, but with two Category 2 climbs to Sestriere and Montgenevre before the gruelling ascent of the Galibier, it was the first real test of the Tour.

The Galibier — the first “hors catégorie” (out of category) climb this year — was 23 kilometers (14 miles) long with an average gradient of 5.1%. The toughest parts were near the summit, where the road climbed to a gradient of almost 10%.

In front of the summit stands a monument to the founder of the Tour de France, Henri Desgrange.

Major climbs like the Galibier usually come later in the race. But organizers have shuffled the start in Italy and the finish in Nice to avoid clashing with the Olympic Games in Paris.

Stage 5 on Wednesday is a much less challenging 177-kilometre (110-mile) stage from Saint-Jean-De-Maurienne to Saint-Vulbas with two category 4 climbs before a flat finish that could end in a sprint. There is another flat stage on Thursday before the race’s first individual time trial on Friday.

AP Cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling