Child’s play Pogacar dominates on Tour de France mountain again
Overall leader Tadej Pogacar again proved his dominance on the Tour de France as he won a second consecutive mountain stage in the Pyrenees yesterday 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.
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. Pogacar raced ahead with ease over the last kilometre and slowed down to take a look over his shoulder as he crossed the line for his third stage win on this edition.
“I felt good and I’m really happy with the win. It’s a game for me, I’m enjoying playing it,” said the 22-year-old who has dominated in the mountains and on the all important timetrials, just as Spaniard Alberto Contador and Briton Chris Froome did in their time.