Tadej Pogacar won the sixth stage of the Tour de France on Thursday at the top of Cauterets-Cambasque by dropping Jonas Vingegaard on the last climb to take him back 28 seconds overall.
After giving up 1 minute and 4 seconds the day before during the first of the two Pyrenean stages, Pogacar took a resounding revenge on his Danish rival, who consoled himself by taking the yellow jersey from the Australian Jai Hindley.
It is the tenth stage victory in the Grande Boucle for Pogacar who celebrated it under the eyes of President Emmanuel Macron, bowing as he crossed the line.
He had lost ground the day before in Marie Blanque, but responded with panache on Thursday in a superb mountain stage, turning into a long-awaited mano a mano.
Despite the lack of support from his UAE team, the Slovenian attacked 2.7 km from the finish to finish 24 seconds ahead of his rival and pocket 4 bonus seconds as a bonus.
In the general classification, Vingegaard is only ahead of Pogacar by 25 seconds. Jai Hindley, who only wore the yellow jersey for one day, completes the podium, but is now 1 min 34 s behind the new Tour leader.
Vingegaard and Pogacar took off in the Tourmalet, the penultimate climb of the day, where the Danish defending champion’s Jumbo-Visma team blew up all the other cadors.
On the descent to Luz-Saint-Sauveur, they found the survivors of the morning breakaway, which once again featured Wout Van Aert, Vingegaard’s teammate.
The Belgian towed a small group of eight riders until two-thirds of the last climb, the moment of the royal explanation between Vingegaard and Pogacar.
And, while we thought that the Dane had the advantage, it was the Slovenian who proved to be the strongest to relaunch the Tour with panache.