Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) has put a down payment on a third consecutive Tour de France win after a day of chaos on the pavé of the French Grand Tour. However, 35-year-old Simon Clarke of Israel Premier Tech, who had no team at the start of the year, won the stage from the early breakaway.
Tour champion Pogačar rode a perfect race; staying close to, or at, the front of the ever-thinning peloton as his rivals suffered crashes and mechanicals. The big news in the GC battle was Jumbo Visma finding themselves off the back of the reduced peloton, in two groups, chasing back on.
In the end, Jonas Vingegaard has his Jumbo Visma team mate, and yellow jersey, Wout van Aert to thank for losing just 13 seconds to Pogačar after a massive chase. But Roglič lost 2:08 to Pogačar.
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Vingegaard suffered a mechanical - requiring several changes of bike - before his Jumbo Visma co-leader Roglič was involved in a crash caused by a safety bail rolling into the road and clipping some riders at the front of the peloton.
While yellow jersey Van Aert dropped back to help Vingegaard back on, Roglič then had his crash and half the team formed around him behind the Vingegaard-Van Aert group.
Van Aert then put in an incredible ride, towing the very large chasing group back to the remains of the peloton, and only losing 13 seconds to Pogačar, who attacked on the penultimate stretch of pavé to make sure the first Jumbo Visma chasing group would not get back to him.
In the final, Pogačar managed to get clear of the reduced peloton with Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) - the Tour champion making sure to take advantage of the Jumbo Visma crisis taking place behind him.
Up front, the day-long breakaway was riding frantically in the final 20km to stay clear of Pogačar and Stuyven.
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In that breakaway, which went clear very early, were: Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Total Energies), Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost), Simon Clarke (Israel-PremierTech) and Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels).
While the two chasers closed to within 40 seconds of the breakaway, four of the escapees made it all the way. Clarke took the stage victory from Van der Hoorn after the breakaway came down to four; Boasson Hagen 3rd at two seconds and Powless placing 4th at four seconds.
Then came Magnus Cort 5th at 30 seconds, followed 21 seconds later by the Stuyven-Pogačar two-man train. They were 51 seconds down on the stage winner.
The only silver lining for Jumbo Visma was that the group containing Van Aert and, crucially, Vingegaard were only 13 seconds behind Stuyven-Pogačar on the line. Van Aert effectively saved Vingegaard's Tour and also kept the yellow jersey; Powless missing out on taking the race lead by just 13 seconds.
However, Roglič lost 2:08 to Pogačar and that means his GC challenge has suffered a near terminal set-back, with Vingegaard now the much clearer general classification leader of the Jumbo Visma team.
Powless was up the road for the day and was virtual race leader. However, as he looked like he may go into yellow, his team mate - Alberto Bettiol - was back in the reduced peloton leading it at high speed across the cobbles in pursuit of the breakaway. Bettiol was even tag-teaming on the front with Pogačar for a time in what looked like very strange tactics with a team mate up the road and with such a big prize on offer.
More to come.
