In a tumultuous day for the general classification, Remco Evenepoel won stage 15 of the Tour de France on Sunday, sprinting clear from a trio of the world’s best, the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe rider taking the win at Plateau de Solaison.
In what was the Belgian’s first road win at the Tour, he out-sprinted overall race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), beating him into second place, with the Slovenian’s teammate, Isaac del Toro, third, a handful of seconds behind.
The group had formed at the bottom of the final climb, Pogačar upping the pace and dropping everyone else. With the yellow jersey leading all the way, the trio swept up what remained of the day’s breakaway, the final rider caught around 5km from the line.
Pogačar kept the pressure on leading into the final kilometre, before Del Toro attacked with 900m to go. The Mexican champion was unable to drop Evenepoel, though, and a second move with 400m to go had the same result.
Evenepoel then held off Pogačar to take a third Tour de France stage win and move into second place overall.
The race was shaken by the abandon of Jonas Vingegaard, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider injured in a crash around 20km from the finish. Vingegaard had started the day second on GC, and his absence contributed to a raft of changes at the top of the standings.
