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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Pogacar begins final week of 2025 Tour de France in touching distance of legend
Three-time champion Tadej Pogacar will spend Monday's rest day of the 2025 Tour de France savouring his feats in the Pyrenees of southern France that have helped him establish a four-minute lead over his arch rival and two-time victor Jonas Vingegaard. Pogacar, who is seeking a fourth title that will take him joint fifth on the all-time winner's list, claimed the 12th and 13th stages to open up the gap on Vingegaard. The wins on Thursday and Friday also furnished him with his 20th and 21st stage victories. Friday's 10.9 km time trial for the 13th stage was completed in 23 minutes. 'I really wanted to go all out from start to finish, smashing the pedals as much as possible,' said Pogacar. 'I almost blew out in the end but I saw the time on the finish arch and it gave me an extra push because I saw I was going to win.' Pogacar, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader, cemented his grip on the race during Thursday's first big mountain stage on the slopes of Hautacam, where he destroyed the field to reclaim the yellow jersey after it had adorned the back of the Irish rider Ben Healy for two days 'So far, so good,' said Pogacar. "We're just a bit over halfway now and it's still a long way to Paris but if we keep riding like this and don't do any mistakes, then we can be satisfied with this margin." Vingegaard says he will fight on Vingegaard, who won cycling's most prestigious race in 2022 and 2023, vowed to keep fighting. "The Tour is far from over," insisted the 28-year-old Dane. "We have to keep believing we can do something here in the race." Tim Wellens, Pogacar's teammate took stage 15 on Sunday. The 34-year-old Belgian completed the 169.3km between Muret and Carcassonne in three hours, 34 minutes and nine seconds. Victor Campenaerts was second and Julien Alaphilippe was third. "I had the opportunity, I took it, and I had legs to finish it," said Wellens who ended the course 88 seconds ahead of Campenaerts. 'I knew that I had to enjoy the moment,' Wellens added. 'I kept riding until the finish line because I wanted a big gap to fully enjoy it and maybe put my bike in the air after the finish. But I was so happy to win that I forgot to do it.' The tour resumes on Tuesday with a 171.5km run between Montpellier and Mont Ventoux and concludes on Sunday along the Champs Elysées in Paris.
Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Times
I'm not untouchable, insists peerless Tadej Pogacar as he builds 4min lead
Here's the part you may find hard to believe. Each day that he wins a stage or wears the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar is obliged to sit in a mobile studio by the finish and do a video conference with journalists at the centre de presse. This is after he has warmed down, done TV interviews, attended to podium duties and gone to anti-doping. Who would blame him for being a little cranky? He never is. On Friday he won the 13th stage, a 10.9km mountain time-trial from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes. He rode up a killer of a climb at an average speed of 28km/h . His great rival, Jonas Vingegaard, had one of his better days at the Tour de France but was beaten by 36sec. Vingegaard was far from despondent. 'I knew it was not my normal level [Hautacam, on Thursday]. It's not like I lost belief in myself, I still believe in myself. I think today I came back to normal. So I have to keep on trying.' Every other contender lost significant time. Poor Remco Evenepoel was 2min 39sec down and though he remains third overall, he now trails Pogacar by 7:24. Of those who lost time, Oscar Onley gained the most. In his second Tour de France, the 22-year-old has delivered a coming-of-age performance. At every difficult moment he is where he should be in the race and on the lone ride to Peyragudes, he did well. He finished 2:06 down on Pogacar but recorded the seventh-fastest time of the day and that lifted him from seventh to fifth overall. A place in the top five is not beyond his capabilities. Where does this latest victory leave Pogacar? Leading the race by 4:07 and heading for another post-race visit to the mobile studio. The second question asks if he's afraid of making enemies in the peloton and might consider backing off now so others might win stages? 'I am not here to make enemies,' he said, softly. 'It's the Tour de France, you can't just back off if there's an opportunity for a stage win. 'On the Tour you never know when is your last day. I will say this honestly: the team pays you not to give away things. There's a big team behind you that supports you and they work every day of their career so you can come to the Tour and win. If I singlehandedly decided to give away every opportunity that we can grab, my team would not be happy. 'If there's an opportunity, you go for it. When I finish my career, I will probably not speak with 99 per cent of the peloton, honestly. I will focus on my close friends and my family when I finish my career.' This was the week that Scottie Scheffler initiated a thoughtful debate around the ephemeral essence of success in sport. 'It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes,' Scheffler said. 'It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling.' This was no throwaway observation from the world's best golfer but an insight into how difficult it is for him to find meaning in what he does. 'There's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfil them in life, and you get there, you get to No1 in the world, and they're like, 'What's the point?' I really do believe that, because what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?' Pogacar goes to the Tour of Flanders, a brutal one-day classic over cobbled climbs, and is expected to win. He does. Barely has he finished his warm-down and he's being asked about three upcoming one-day Classics: Paris-Roubaix, Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. At these races it will only be a story if he doesn't win. At Roubaix he is second. The other two, he wins. He won his first Tour at 21. A kid in the foothills of his career but with enough talent to overturn a 57sec deficit on the penultimate day and win a race no one envisaged him winning. Since then he's been expected to win every Tour de France he's ridden. He won two from four and was as gracious in defeat as he was modest in victory. His career was changed, enriched you could say, by the losses. After this victory at Peyragudes, his 21st stage win, I ask if, like Scheffler, he wonders about the point of it all? 'I don't know. It is a good question. It is hard to answer. I started cycling when I was eight, nine years old, and I created my life around the bike. I found my closest friends on the bike. I found my girlfriend, now fiancée, through the bike. 'The point is you need to enjoy the moment. The little things, not just the victories. Like he said, when you win, people think about the next win or [say] that you're winning too much. You need to enjoy what you are making the sacrifices for. I think living in the moment is the right answer to this question [of what's the point] and not care too much about what everyone else thinks.' Pogacar is then asked if he is untouchable. What is he supposed to say? He takes the question calmly. 'If you'd seen me at the 2022 Tour, or 2023, I had bad moments. I cracked. Those years I was second, had stage wins but had those bad moments and I can still have them this year. I wouldn't say I'm untouchable. I will try to be, but there can come a bad day.' Some wonder how he can be so good? Not me. There's a story told by the UAE sports director Andrej Hauptman of going to watch an 11-year-old Pogacar ride a circuit race in Slovenia with the kid's coach at the time. Hauptman wasn't impressed as the slightly built and skinny Pogacar was off the back of the peloton, furiously trying to catch up. He asked the coach if it was sensible to have him race against older and stronger boys. 'Andrej, he's not off the back. He's attacked from the start and now he's going to lap everyone.' Another memory is of the Saturday afternoon at La Planche des Belles Filles after his astonishing time-trial victory that gave him his first Tour de France victory. At the media conference he said he would like to thank his parents. 'F the genetics.' He said it with a smile but he meant it. He is far from stupid. In 2019, his first season with UAE, they took him to the United States for training and to race the Tour of California, which he won. While in the US, all the UAE riders underwent testing under the supervision of Iñigo San Millán, who at that time was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. San Millán was particularly interested in discovering the rates at which riders cleared lactate from their fast-twitch muscle fibres. 'One of the measurements I took is for lactate to see how quickly the lactate levels recover after a hard effort,' San Millán has said. 'With Pogacar, I noticed that his lactate recovery capacity was huge. His levels would return to normal after two minutes, while some riders took 20 minutes. That's a great advantage when you're attacking a climb as you can keep on attacking. It's been shown that world-class athletes produce more because they have a higher glycolytic capacity and can also clear it more proficiently. Well, Pogacar has one of the greatest glycolytic capacities I've ever seen.' Tadej definitely wasn't joking when he thanked his folks.
The Independent
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Race leader Tadej Pogacar makes history with fourth stage win of this Tour de France
Tadej Pogacar became the youngest rider to reach 21 Tour de France stage wins as he stretched his advantage in the yellow jersey to more than four minutes in Friday's mountain time trial to Peyragudes. Pogacar completed the 10.9km route from Loudenvielle - 8km of which was made up of the first category climb to the mountain top airstrip - in a time of 23 minutes flat, putting another 36 seconds into his closest rival Jonas Vingegaard as others fell even further back. It was a fourth stage win of this year's Tour for the 26-year-old, who is now 14 shy of Mark Cavendish 's all-time record. A day after he underlined his dominance so far with a solo win on the Hautacam, Pogacar extended his lead over Vingegaard to four minutes and seven seconds, and barring misfortune, it is hard to see how anyone can stop him winning a fourth title. 'I'm super happy,' said Pogacar. 'This time trial was quite a big question mark already in December for me. I wanted everything to be perfect and the team delivered in the final moments for everything to be on top. 'I had an easy day in the morning, a nice preparation and then I was really targeting to go from the start to the finish all out and try to smash it as much as possible on the pedals. 'I almost blew up in the end but I saw the time [on the finish line screens] and it gave me an extra push because I knew I was going to win.' After losing more than two minutes to Pogacar on Thursday, Vingegaard was much happier after catching a struggling Remco Evenepoel, his two-minute man, 50 metres from the line on the 15 per cent gradients at the top of the runway. 'Of course yesterday was really disappointing,' the two-time Tour winner, who cracked when Pogacar accelerated on the lower slopes of Hautacam, said. 'I hoped for more but in the end I was just a bit empty. 'Yesterday was probably one of my worst performances but today was one of my best so it's nice to come back like this.' Both Vingegaard and Evenepoel, the world time trial champion, were among a handful of riders that opted to go with adapted time trial bikes, while Pogacar chose a road bike and made the decision pay. Having shipped more than two minutes to both Pogacar and Vingegaard, Evenepoel barely hung on to third place overall and the best young rider's white jersey, just six seconds ahead of Florian Lipowitz. Lipowitz and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Primoz Roglic both put in brilliant performances, Slovenian Roglic finishing third on the stage at 1'20' behind Pogacar. The 22-year-old Scot Oscar Onley is also definitely part of the fight for the podium, up to fifth overall, eight minutes off yellow but only 47 seconds behind Evenepoel. 'Looking at the times now it looks like we were all suffering a little bit but I did what I could," Onley said. 'With the steep runway at the end, I just had to hold back a little bit but it was difficult with the rest of the climb just an uncomfortable gradient.' It was a second consecutive bad day for Evenepoel, who said he had 'no idea' why he has struggled. 'With a normal feeling I should end up in the top three but I was really bad,' he said.
Reuters
5 days ago
- Sport
- Reuters
Pogacar claims fourth stage win to extend lead as fourth title looms
LOUDENVIELLE, France, July 18 (Reuters) - Tadej Pogacar continued his charge towards an anticipated fourth Tour de France title when he stretched his overall lead to over four minutes by winning the 13th stage, a lung-busting 10.9-km uphill time trial on Friday. The defending champion dominated the eight-kilometre climb at 7.9% to clock 23 minutes and beat Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard by a massive 36 seconds, a day after dealing a significant blow to his closest rival in the first major mountain stage in the Pyrenees. Fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic took third place, 1:40 off the pace, while Belgian Remco Evenepoel hung on to third place overall by the skin of his teeth following a disappointing effort that saw him finish 2:39 behind Pogacar. After his fourth stage win in this year's race, UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider Pogacar leads Vingegaard by 4:07 and Evenepoel by 7:24. German Florian Lipowitz showed great form again and trails Evenepoel by six seconds. Pogacar picked a regular road bike for the solo effort against the clock while Evenepoel and Vingegaard opted for a time trial bike - heavier but with better aerodynamics. It was quickly clear that regardless of those calculations, Pogacar was again the strongest rider as he posted the best time on the brief flat portion ahead of the main ascent before further extending his advantage. "I'm super happy. This time trial was a question mark for me back in December. I wanted everything to be perfect, and the team delivered - everything was on point," he told reporters. "I was targeting to go all out from start to finish. I almost blew up at the end, but when I saw I was going to win at the finish, it gave me an extra push." The 26-year-old said it had been a close call between the road and the TT bike, but in the end he chose the most comfortable ride. "The biggest decision was which bike to ride today. Obviously, we ride road bikes all year round, but we did the calculations and the time ended up about the same. So I decided to go with what I felt more confident on." Pogacar went full gas from the start. "My tactic was simple: go all out from the bottom to the top," he said. "At the first time check, I saw I was five seconds ahead - that gave me confidence. The second split was even better," he explained. "Basically, I was trying not to blow up in the first part. I almost did in the end - maybe in the last kilometre. From 3 to 2 km to go, I reset a bit because that last kick is super steep." Pogacar will now go for a hat-trick of stage wins on Saturday, when the 14th stage will take the peloton from Pau to Luchon-Superbagneres with the awe-inspiring climbs of the Col d'Aspin, Col du Tourmalet, Col de Peyresourde before the final ascent, a 12.4-km effort at 7.3%.
CNA
5 days ago
- Sport
- CNA
Pogacar claims fourth stage win to extend lead as fourth title looms
LOUDENVIELLE, France :Tadej Pogacar continued his charge towards an anticipated fourth Tour de France title when he stretched his overall lead to over four minutes by winning the 13th stage, a lung-busting 10.9-km uphill time trial on Friday. The defending champion dominated the eight-kilometre climb at 7.9 per cent to clock 23 minutes and beat Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard by a massive 36 seconds, a day after dealing a significant blow to his closest rival in the first major mountain stage in the Pyrenees. Fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic took third place, 1:40 off the pace, while Belgian Remco Evenepoel hung on to third place overall by the skin of his teeth following a disappointing effort that saw him finish 2:39 behind Pogacar. After his fourth stage win in this year's race, UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider Pogacar leads Vingegaard by 4:07 and Evenepoel by 7:24. German Florian Lipowitz showed great form again and trails Evenepoel by six seconds. Pogacar picked a regular road bike for the solo effort against the clock while Evenepoel and Vingegaard opted for a time trial bike - heavier but with better aerodynamics. It was quickly clear that regardless of those calculations, Pogacar was again the strongest rider as he posted the best time on the brief flat portion ahead of the main ascent before further extending his advantage. "I'm super happy. This time trial was a question mark for me back in December. I wanted everything to be perfect, and the team delivered - everything was on point," he told reporters. "I was targeting to go all out from start to finish. I almost blew up at the end, but when I saw I was going to win at the finish, it gave me an extra push." The 26-year-old said it had been a close call between the road and the TT bike, but in the end he chose the most comfortable ride. "The biggest decision was which bike to ride today. Obviously, we ride road bikes all year round, but we did the calculations and the time ended up about the same. So I decided to go with what I felt more confident on." Pogacar went full gas from the start. "My tactic was simple: go all out from the bottom to the top," he said. "At the first time check, I saw I was five seconds ahead - that gave me confidence. The second split was even better," he explained. "Basically, I was trying not to blow up in the first part. I almost did in the end - maybe in the last kilometre. From 3 to 2 km to go, I reset a bit because that last kick is super steep." Pogacar will now go for a hat-trick of stage wins on Saturday, when the 14th stage will take the peloton from Pau to Luchon-Superbagneres with the awe-inspiring climbs of the Col d'Aspin, Col du Tourmalet, Col de Peyresourde before the final ascent, a 12.4-km effort at 7.3 per cent.
