Tadej Pogačar second at Luchon-Superbagnères

The last chapter of the Pyrenean mountain stages ended with a top-quality climbers’ display along the 182.6 km from Pau to Luchon-Superbagnères (stage 14, featuring the climbs of the Tourmalet, Col d’Aspin, and Col de Peyresourde, in addition to the summit finish), which saw Tadej Pogačar take second place and strengthen his lead in the general classification.

A large breakaway led the race for most of the stage after going clear from the peloton on the Tourmalet, but the pace set by the yellow jersey group, driven by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, helped limit the gap to the race leaders.

The breakaway was gradually thinned out over the Col d’Aspin and Peyresourde, leaving only Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) at the front for the summit finish. Behind him, the Pogačar-Vingegaard duo once again proved dominant, as no other riders could follow their pace.

The yellow jersey crossed the finish line 1’08” after Arensman, with Vingegaard taking third at 1’12”.
With these results, Pogačar’s advantage in the GC over the Danish rider is now 4’13”.

Pogačar: “Arensman did a super race and he did one hell of a ride, he was the strongest of a super-strong break.But we managed great, too, without making stupid mistakes. I think we did a good job.

When you’ve been riding super hard for 2.5 hours and come to the top of the Tourmalet, you think, oh, now we’ll descend easy and have time to recover,but instead, there was really thick fog on the top, it was misty and there was a slippery road, you come when you are a bit tired and you still need to focus on downhill, basically you see 20 metres ahead. But we went really conservatively.”

Stage 14 results

Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) 4h53’35”

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) + 1’08”

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma Lease a Bike) + 1’12”

General classification after stage 14

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) 50h40’28”

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma Lease a Bike) + 4’13”

Florian Lipowitz (Bora-hansgrohe) + 7’53”