The defending champion is back on top of the leaderboard at the Tour de France.
Cor Vos
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took a convincing victory on stage 3 of the Tour de France, outkicking Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) atop the Les Angles climb.
UAE took control of the race from a long ways out, dashing the hopes of the breakaway riders on a stage that had seemed like a good one for the escapees. Instead, it came down to a sprint of GC contenders, and the moment Pogačar’s teammate Isaac del Toro gave way to his team leader with 200 meters to go, it was clear that Pogačar was on his way to his 22nd career Tour stage win.
Vingegaard took runner-up honors two seconds later, with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) in third on the day. With bonus seconds taken into account, Pogačar pulled even on time with Vingegaard and he therefore took over the race leader’s yellow jersey on countback.
[race_result id=17 stage_id=89778 count=5 gc=0 year=2026]
[race_result id=17 stage_id=89778 count=5 gc=5 year=2026]
How it happenedThe 195.9 km stage from Granollers featured a fierce fight to form the main breakaway, with constant attacks and regroupings through the first hour of the day, another very hot one at over 32°C (90°F). The high-intensity racing saw Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) dropped early, forcing the Belgian – who has been dealing with stomach issues – into a long and arduous chase. He would ultimately abandon.It was only after some 70 km that a sizable group finally made it clear. After Egan Bernal (Netcompany-Ineos) was quickly dropped from the group, Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was the biggest name still there, though the Dane was focused more on intermediate sprint points than on contesting the stage. Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) seemed like more of a threat and at only a little over a minute down on Vingegaard, he was hoping to work his way into yellow on the day as well.Pedersen won the maximum points at the sprint and then soon drifted back out of the group. Strong efforts at the front on the Cat. 1 Collada de Toses saw the lead group drop to just six riders, who summited the climb with a little under two minutes. Behind, UAE took a more active role in the chase, whittling away at the peloton and bringing the gap under a minute and a half as the Tour entered France with under 50 km to go.
Baudin attacked on the early slopes of the day’s penultimate climb, the Col du Calvaire, and Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon-CMA CGM) soon joined him, leaving the rest of the surviving breakaway riders behind.
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