Overall leader Tadej Pogacar again proved his dominance on the Tour de France as he won a second consecutive mountain stage in the Pyrenees on Thursday and said “it’s a game for me.”
On a short final mountain stage of 130km, Pogacar out-ran his two closest rivals, Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz, just as he did on the previous day.
The 2020 champion continued the most dominant run in recent Tour memory, by climbing on to the post-race podium four times — as stage winner, as best young rider, best climber and as the runaway overall leader.
The peloton left Pau under a shadow Thursday after an overnight anti-doping raid on the Bahrain-Victorious team at their hotel.
“It’s something strange, maybe just one more control to see nobody’s hiding anything,” said Pogacar of UAE.
“We only found out in the morning, I don’t know what to think,” he said of the raid.
The pack descends the Tourmalet pass during the 18th stage of the 108th edition of the Tour de France cycling race, 129 km between Pau and Luz Ardiden, on July 15, 2021. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
But by the time an Ineos quartet were leading the remnants of the pack up the final climb of this Tour de France, however, the focus was on the possible challenges to the leader on the road.
“It was full gas racing today, Ineos were pressing from deep,” the leader said of what was likely Carapaz’s last chance to unseat him.
“We had nothing to lose today, so we are happy,” said the Ecuadorian.
“Our goal was to win the stage, I think we put up a good fight.”
With 3km left Pogacar, Vingegaard and Carapaz were left to cross swords in a pulsating uphill battle to a finish line above the clouds at the ski resort of Luz Ardiden with hundreds of thousands of fans along the roadside and cycling-loving French President Emmanuel Macron in the director’s car at the head of the action.
