Tadej Pogacar wins first mountain stage and is back in yellow

Cycling superstar Tadej Pogacar has won the first difficult mountain stage of the 111th Tour de France and regained the yellow jersey.

The Slovenian Giro winner prevailed on Tuesday after 139.6 kilometers on the fourth stage with the difficult climb to the 2642 meter high Col du Galibier, ahead of time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel and his Spanish team colleague Juan Ayuso. On the stage from Pinerolo to Valloire in France, the 25-year-old high-flyer took over the yellow jersey of overall winner from Olympic champion Richard Carapaz from Ecuador.

On the 23-kilometer-long and 5.1 percent-steep climb to the Galibier, Pogacar and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard once again went head-to-head. A few meters before the top of the mountain, Pogacar broke away from Vingegaard, mastered the descent to the finish line impressively and increased the gap to the Dane to 50 seconds. Primoz Roglic, captain of the German Red Bull team, came fourth.

“I’m super happy, that was the plan and we executed it well. It was a dream stage for me. I wanted to hit hard today, I trained a lot for that,” said Pogacar.

On Wednesday, the sprinters can again hope for a mass finish on the fifth stage over 177.4 kilometers from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Saint-Vulbas. Only two easier climbs of the fourth category have to be overcome.