Tour de France: Pogacar strikes at the first mountain arrival

At the top, Pogacar has come back impressively with his tenth stage win in the big tour after weaknesses the day before. Overall, the Dane Vingegaard is 25 seconds ahead of his Slovenian opponent and is the new wearer of the yellow jersey. Australia’s Jai Hindley, wearing yellow on Wednesday, was sixth and third overall, 1:34 back.

“Yesterday I was a little sad, so today the relief is all the greater,” said Pogacar, who was unable to withstand Vingegaard’s attack on stage five. The Dane, who won the tour a year ago, is happy about his return in yellow. “I’m really happy to have the jersey back, I love the color, it’s the most beautiful symbol of our sport,” said the 26-year-old.

Gall has to give up his mountain jersey again

Gall, who finished third on his first tour the day before and was also allowed to wear the dotted mountain jersey, finished 15th, 3:22 minutes behind. Overall, the 25-year-old is now 20th, the mountain jersey was secured for the time being by the American Neilson Powless. Gall is second with 28 points, eight points short of first place.

APA/AFP/Thomas Samson Gall had to take off his dotted jersey after a stage

“I felt really good again today. It was a pity that I wasn’t in the breakaway group because the next two days will be sprints. From that point of view it would have been ideal, then I would have been able to recover. But it was super cool to drive in the points jersey, maybe I can get it again,” said Gall after the race.

But his focus is on a day win, he emphasized. “The priority is on one stage. The stages that suit me, there are a lot of climbs, and when I’m in a breakaway group, I’ll keep an eye on the climbs and try to pick up one or the other climb. In a way, the two goals can be combined,” explained the 25-year-old.

Vingegaard attacks, Pogacar can follow

The two-time Tour winner Pogacar had shown unusual weaknesses on the first mountain stage the day before and lost over a minute to Vingegaard. The 24-year-old broke his scaphoid at the end of April and came to the Tour with a training backlog and without much racing experience. His scaphoid is still bandaged. Already on the legendary Tourmalet, the penultimate climb of the day, things got down to business. Vingegaard attacked, the attack was followed only by Pogacar, who showed no weakness. Hindley had already lost two minutes to the favorite duo on the summit of the Tourmalet.

Vingegaard’s next push followed in the 16-kilometer climb to Cauterets-Cambasque, which despite its length is not one of the greatest difficulties in the high mountains. Only in the last five kilometers did the gradient increase to double-digit percentages, which Vingegaard used to attack. But he couldn’t get rid of Pogacar, was apparently completely surprised by his counterattack and ultimately lost valuable time.

“It will be a battle to the end”

“I wouldn’t say it was revenge. I just feel relieved. When Jonas was already attacking at the Tourmalet, I thought I could pack my things and go home. But luckily I had good legs,” said Pogacar. “The distance to Jonas is almost perfect now. It’s going to be a big battle to the end.” After the two Pyrenees stages, it’s the sprinters’ turn again on Friday. From Mont-de-Marsan it is mostly flat to Bordeaux.

Tour de France, sechste Etappe

Tarbes – Cauterets-Cambasque (145 km): 1. Tadej Pogacar SLO 3:54:27 2. Jonas Vingegaard DEN + 0:24 3. Tobias Johannessen NOR 1:22 4. Ruben Guerreiro POR 2:06 5. James Shaw GBR 2:15 6. Jai Hindley AUS 2:39 7. Carlos Rodriguez ESP -“- 8. Simon Yates GBR -“- 9. Adam Yates GBR 3:11 10. Romain Bardet FROM 3:1

Felix Gall

AUT