Tadej Pogacar continued to chisel into Jonas Vingegaard’s dwindling lead in the Tour de France, after climbing clear of the defending champion in the finish to the volcanic summit of the Puy de Dôme, overlooking Clermont-Ferrand.
As Michael Woods of the Israel‑Premier Tech team took a spectacular stage victory, his first in the Tour, Pogacar and his UAE Emirates team continued to test Vingegaard’s resolve on the steepest gradients.
In the modern Tour, with riders so closely matched, every second counts and, ominously for Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma team, the gap between the pair is steadily closing, not widening, as the race goes on.
Woods, almost two minutes behind the lone attacker, Matteo Jorgenson, at the foot of the climb, and twice a stage winner in the Vuelta a España, powered his way beyond the exhausted American on the brutal final gradients to claim his first Tour stage success.
“I’m 36 years old, turning 37 this year and not getting any younger,” an overjoyed Woods said. “I’ve always talked about winning a stage at the Tour de France and I’ve finally achieved it.”
Jorgenson, meanwhile, was disconsolate. “A minute from the bottom of that climb wasn’t enough, but I did what I could,” he said. “I just started to feel empty with a kilometre to go and then, before I knew it, Mike was there and passing me. It was a surprise but there was absolutely nothing I could do.”
In the race for the yellow jersey the pendulum has swung again, and this time a little further in Pogacar’s favour. A sharp acceleration from the double Tour winner, 1.5km from the finish, enabled the Slovenian to claw back time on his Danish rival, in a race that still remains too close to call.
After the first Pyrenean stage, the defending champion had led Pogacar by 53 seconds, but now his advantage is just 17 seconds. Questioned over his lead ebbing away, Vingegaard played a dead bat.
“It would be nice to have stayed with him and not lose any time,” Jumbo-Visma’s leader said of Pogacar’s attack. “I think there are stages that suit me better than this. I’m happy to still be in yellow. I’m looking forward to coming into the Alps.”
Only 48 hours ago, the defending champion assured the media that he was feeling “better and better”. Asked if, given that he had dropped Vingegaard at two mountain finishes, his rival might now be feeling the same, he responded: “I think you have to ask Tadej about that.”
With stifling temperatures settling on the Massif Central, it was the perfect day for a breakaway to take its chance. So it proved, with a 13 rider attack, that included the American Neilson Powless, of EF Education‑EasyPost, and his compatriot Jorgenson of the Movistar team, the Milan-San Remo winner and a past Tour stage winner in Matej Mohoric, of Bahrain Victorious, and Woods, who has Chris Froome as a teammate at Israel-Premier Tech, though the four-time winner is not taking part in this race.
The break’s lead on the peloton was well over 15 minutes by the time Jorgenson, 20th overall in the 2022 Tour, who survived a bee flying into his helmet during the afternoon, approached Clermont-Ferrand as a lone leader with a 20sec advantage on the remnants of the group.
In 35C heat, the lonely climb to the top of the Puy looked a thankless task, but he gradually built up his lead to just under a minute as he reached the foot of the 13km climb. But Woods had timed his effort perfectly and accelerated past the exhausted Jorgenson to secure victory.
It was a better day, too, for Tom Pidcock of Ineos Grenadiers, who moved up through the standings to seventh place overall.
