TOUR DE FRANCE
but was caught with 11 kilo- meters remaining. Van Aert dropped off on the hilly final section of the stage and eventually lost more than seven minutes.
It’s the earliest that Pogacar has worn yellow on the Tour after taking the lead on the 20th stage in 2020 and the eighth stage last year.
Friday sees the Tour’s first mountain stage and a return to a place where the UAE Team Emirates rider made his name. The 176-kilometer seventh stage runs from Tomblaine to a summit finish on La Planche des Belles Filles, where he surged to victory to take the yellow jersey from fellow Slovenian Primož Roglic in the penultimate stage in 2020.
Despite the imposing length of the stage, the pace was relentlessly fast from the start.
Van Aert, Quinn Simmons and Jakob Fuglsang broke away and had a four-minute gap to the peloton at one stage, but were gradually reeled back in. Fuglsang dropped back and the advantage was down to two minutes with 50 kilometers
Anne-christine Poujoulat to go. Simmons couldn’t keep up with Van Aert, who kept his lead stable at just over a minute with 25 kilometers remaining, but the Belgian didn’t have enough energy left to stay in front on the repeated climbs.
Pogacar said he had thought Van Aert could take the stage win on his own and credited his team’s “incredibly good job” getting him into position to fight for the stage win on the uphill finish of the Côte des Religieuses.
Van Aert had led since the second stage Saturday, with a series of impressive rides and a stage win along the way. The Belgian will now swap his yellow jersey for green as leader of the sprint classification.
“For sure the yellow jersey is nicer than the green one but I’ve enjoyed the yellow and I’ll enjoy the green as well,” he said. “At the end of the day, we were only three at the front, so I was well aware that it would be a mission to stay up there till the end. But I’ve wanted to honor the Maillot Jaune and share the moment with the crowd.”