Pogacar powers to historic 21st Tour de France stage win with mountain time trial masterclass

Tadej Pogačar won Friday’s Tour de France mountain time trial in Peyragudes, becoming the youngest rider to claim 21 stage wins. He extended his overall lead, crushing Jonas Vingegaard by 36 seconds and overshadowing a struggling Remco Evenepoel.

Hyderabad: Slovenian sensation Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) became the youngest rider in history to win 21 stages of the Tour de France with a barnstorming performance in Friday’s mountain time trial at Peyragudes. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) caught the Olympic and world time trial champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) on the steep final ramp – but still this was not enough to bring him a first win or even come close to derailing the peerless Pogacar’s pursuit of perfection.

The 26-year-old triple Tour champion completed the 10.9km race of truth in a time of 23 minutes on the nose – a whopping 36 seconds quicker than his nearest challenger, Vingegaard. It was Pogacar’s fourth stage victory of the race.

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Pogacar now leads the Dane by over four minutes in the overall standings, with Evenepoel slumping 7’23” in arrears after another day to forget in the Pyrenees for the Belgian.

Riding without a radio and eschewing a time trial bike and other aerodynamic gismos for a regular climbing steed, Pogacar led at each of the check points to deliver a cruel blow to Vingegaard’s hopes of bouncing back into contention.

Pogacar was four seconds down on Evenepoel after 4km with the Belgian fast out of the traps on the flatter section of the ride. But once the road headed up the lower slopes of the Col de Peyresourde, Pogacar came into his element.

Twenty-three seconds quicker than Vingegaard at the second check point at 7.6km, Pogacar claimed he knocked things off a little for fear of blowing up on the double-digit finishing ramp at the altiport at Peyragudes.

It was on this infernal wall where an inspired Vingegaard shot past the fading Evenepoel, who had struggled with an earlier issue with his chain before completely blowing up on the savage home straight.

What would have usually been a stage-winning performance merely earned Vingegaard the shortest possible reign in the hotseat, however, with Pogacar making light work of the 16% gradient to knock the Dane off his perch and secure the latest win in this increasingly one-sided 112th edition of the Tour.

“I’m super happy. I wanted to do start to finish all out – to try to smash it as much as possible. I almost blew up in the end, but I saw the timer on the top and it gave me an extra push because I saw that I was going to win,” Pogacar said.

“I decided to go without a radio today, so I was just relying on the time checks at the time points. I saw that I was ahead in green at the first check.