Tadej Pogačar strengthens grip on the Tour de France with Col de la Loze second place

Remaining steadfast in his hold on the Yellow Jersey, Tadej Pogačar extended his lead of the race on stage 18 of the Tour de France. With second place across the line, behind the stage winner Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla), the Slovenian was able to distance his close rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the final 350m of the day.

Coming at the top of the fearsome Col de la Loze, the final few hundred metres were no easy task, allowing Pogačar the room to extend his lead by 11 seconds, with bonus seconds included. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG man now leads the Tour de France by a little under four and a half minutes heading into the final three days of racing.

Despite Visma-Lease a Bike putting their plans for a siege into place on the Queen stage, Pogačar more than stood up to the task, with his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates also earning their weight in gold. Particular credit must go to Jhonatan Narváez and Adam Yates, both of whom remained beside the Slovenian for the majority of the final climb.

It was a display of dogged defiance from the Emirati squad, who moved a stage closer to a fourth Tour de France victory.

With more than 5,000m of climbing to contend with, stage 18 posed the biggest challenge to the peloton of this year’s race. Ascents of the Col du Glandon, the Col de la Madeleine and the Col de la Loze lay in wait, as the squad of Vingegaard looked to mount an assault on Pogačar’s race lead.

The first part of that plan saw Wout van Aert nip off the front of the bunch to seek his place in the day’s breakaway, to which UAE Team Emirates-XRG responded by sending Tim Wellens up the road. Of the two compatriots, it was the Belgian national champion, Wellens, who lasted the longest at the head of the race. With Pogačar’s peloton always likely to come from behind, the 34-year-old stuck to his tempo out front for the first half of the day.

Over the Col du Glandon and into the first kilometres of the Madeleine, it was Nils Politt, Marc Soler and Pavel Sivakov of UAE Team Emirates-XRG who led the peloton, before Visma-Lease a Bike gained control some 15km from the summit. Through Tiesj Benoot, Victor Campenaerts and Simon Yates, the Dutch squad looked to make the race as hard as possible before Vingegaard made an expected all-or-nothing move.

Right on cue, Sepp Kuss launched a vicious acceleration with 6km to ride, leading to an explosive attack from his team leader Vingegaard some 800m later. At this point, the race began to take a conventional state of play. Vingegaard bridged across to his teammate Matteo Jorgenson from the breakaway, with the pair holding Pogačar in their wheel heading over the top of the Madeleine.

All was near enough play by numbers. Until it wasn’t.

After a quick descent of the climb, the front group tilted course towards the base of the final climb, the Col de la Loze. However, in the valley that connected the peaks, Jorgenson followed an attack made by Ben O’Connor and Einer Rubio (Movistar). With that trio soon up the road with more than a minute, the group containing Pogačar, Vingegaard, Primoź Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) and others began to hesitate, shy of any teammates to do the necessary legwork.

As a result, despite the ensemble of Pogačar and Vingegaard having gained more than three minutes on the group behind, this time gap evaporated. For Pogačar, this was no issue, reuniting him with teammates Soler, Adam Yates and Jhonatan Narváez. Sensing his race was almost run for the day, Soler immediately hit the front and began to set the pace through the lower slopes of the Col de la Loze.

Once Soler was done, Simon Yates looked to tee up Vingegaard for a second time, no doubt hoping to hand over the reins to Kuss once necessary. It was at this point that the day swung in UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s favour, with Narváez storming to the front and dislodging Visma-Lease a Bike’s stranglehold with 11.3km to ride.

From here on out, it was the Emirati squad that dictated the pace.

Narváez produced another fantastic performance to guide Pogačar into the final 5km, before Yates took over the work through the climb’s steepest slopes. As the man from Bury danced on the pedals, riders such as Roglič, Kuss and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) were sent out the back, before the battle came down to a three-way showdown between Pogačar, Vingegaard and podium hopeful Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL).

Vingegaard’s attacks were unable to distance either rider, and inside the final 500m of the stage, it was Pogačar who looked to land another blow. That acceleration proved fruitful just 350m from the line, with the Slovenian dropping both Vingegaard and Onley to surge towards the finish line alone.

Although the stage victory had slipped from grasp through the exploits of O’Connor out front, Pogačar could be satisfied with taking more time on the two-time Tour de France champion, Vingegaard.

Pogačar: “To be honest, I wanted the stage win but of course, the priority is the Yellow Jersey. When Visma went on the Col de la Madeleine, I thought we could go for the stage win as well. But they went a bit too hard maybe, and then also on the downhill they went so fast.

“In the end, it was such a small group and they started to attack each other, so there was no cooperation in the valley. I was waiting for my teammates to come back, but [that group] took a long way to come back.

“In the end, when we came to the bottom of the [last] climb, I was thinking that when Visma started to pull, they would go faster and try to bring the breakaway back. But I think Ben was incredibly strong today for the whole day and for the final climb, so I think he pulled it off quite well. The stage win slipped off, but I am happy that I had good legs on the Col de la Loze and that I keep Yellow.

“It looks very good. Today was the Queen stage, tomorrow is the second Queen stage. Let’s go for it, and we’ll see how it goes. Now, it is three more stages left, and then we can go for a vacation.”

Tour de France 2025 stage 18 results:

1. Ben O’Connor (Jayco AlUla) 5:03:47

2. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +1:45

3. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1:54

8. Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +3:03

Tour de France 2025 general classification after stage 18:

1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 66:55:42

2. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +4:26

3. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +11:01