Pogacar back in yellow as he takes stage victory

DEFENDING champion Tadej Pogacar powered clear to win stage six of the Tour de France and take the yellow jersey after the peloton denied Wout Van Aert what would have been a remarkable solo victory in the leader’s jersey.

Pogacar raced away from a much-reduced peloton at the top of the short climb into Longwy to leave a gap to Michael Matthews in second, with Britain’s Tour debutant Tom Pidcock finishing fourth.

With bonus seconds applied, Pogacar now leads overall by four seconds from Neilson Powless, the 23-year-old Slovenian having already used the opening few stages to show he is again the man to beat this summer.

The longest stage of this year’s Tour, starting in Binche, Belgium, was raced at a ferocious pace finishing half an hour ahead of the fastest predicted schedule.

Much of that was down to Van Aert’s exertions.

The Belgian, two days out from a superb solo win in Calais and a day on from salvaging Jumbo-Visma’s race on a chaotic day on the cobbles, had fought long and hard to get into the day’s breakaway and was then the last survivor as he tried to hang on to a minute’s advantage over the final 30km.

There are few things the 27-year-old cannot do on a bike but it turned out this was one of them as he was hauled in 10km from the line, eventually finishing more than seven minutes down as he turns attention to his pursuit of green and of helping team-mate Jonas Vingegaard challenge Pogacar.

With the first summit finish to come on La Planche des Belles Filles today, Vingegaard sits third, 31 seconds down, with the Ineos Grenadiers trio of Adam Yates, Pidcock and Geraint Thomas fourth, fifth and sixth - all within 46 seconds of Pogacar.

However, Pogacar is now the man in control of this race as he looks for a third straight victory.

“Every time I win it’s even better,” the UAE Team Emirates rider said.

“Today was so hard from the start. The first two hours were crazy and the strongest guy went in the breakaway.

“Lots of guys were pulling and in the end the peloton was stronger.

“When we come to the climbs I was feeling good and the team did an incredibly good job of bringing me to the perfect position, so I’m happy.”