{"id":822971,"date":"2026-07-25T13:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822971\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T13:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T13:06:19","slug":"carapaz-can-defeat-pogacar-in-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822971\/","title":{"rendered":"Carapaz Can Defeat Poga\u010dar in the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Carapaz<\/a> is having a phenomenal third week in the Tour de France. After his stage victory in Stage 18, the Ecuadorian from EF Education-EasyPost<\/a> was once again in contention during Stage 19 to Alpe d’Huez, and he nearly won again. More importantly for the climber: he took over the polka-dot jersey <\/a>from Tadej Poga\u010dar, who admitted to the cameras after the stage that he might well lose the battle for the mountain jersey.There were a lot of riders in this Tour de France who wanted to go for the polka-dot jersey, but Carapaz seems to be the only one who can really put up a fight against Poga\u010dar in Stage 20 on Saturday<\/a>. Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) did pick up a lot of points along the way on Friday, but didn\u2019t have the legs to contest the final sprint. Carapaz did, as evidenced by his third-place finish.<\/p>\n

As a result, Carapaz now has 91 points in the mountains classification, 1 point more than Pogacar in second place. Paret-Peintre is certainly still in contention with 84 points, but the Frenchman proved to be the weakest of the three on Friday. In Stage 20 on Saturday, the riders will have to tackle four grueling mountain passes: Col de la Croix-de-Fer, Col du T\u00e9l\u00e9graphe, Col du Galibier, and Col de Sarenne. So there will be plenty of points up for grabs.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the video<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar appears to be letting Carapaz take the mountain jersey”You’re going to keep this tomorrow, right?” Pogacar asked Carapaz meaningfully after the finish<\/a> at Alpe d’Huez, patting the polka-dot jersey he had just received. The Slovenian rider from UAE Emirates-XRG could, in theory, do whatever he wants and still claim the polka-dot jersey on Saturday, but on Friday he seemed to be setting the stage for others to go for it.<\/p>\n

After his stage win, Pogacar said that, in principle, he would stick with Isaac del Toro, who could finish third in the general classification and thus also take the white jersey to Paris. With five stage wins in this Tour de France, Pogacar has certainly proven himself\u2014that seemed to be the message. If Carapaz is in the mix on Saturday, there\u2019s still a big fish in the pond.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"richard-carapaz\"\/<\/p>\n

Richard Carapaz<\/p>\n

Carapaz is thoroughly enjoying the final week of the Tour de France<\/p>\n

Perhaps Carapaz could have won the stage on Friday as well, but he decided to take a gamble in a group with Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) and Sepp Kuss (Visma | Lease a Bike)\u2014even with a stage win already under his belt. It played right into the hands of the closing-in Pogacar. \u201cI\u2019m really happy for you, man. This was a stage for you,\u201d Carapaz told Pogi afterward.<\/p>\n

The broad smile on Carapaz\u2019s face shows that he\u2019s satisfied with his performance so far. \u201cToday we had only one goal, and that was the mountains jersey. I\u2019m glad I have the jersey, and now we have a mission heading toward Paris. I\u2019m going to recover well now, and Saturday will be an important day. There are a lot of points at stake, so I\u2019m going to give it my all\u2014if my legs can handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Carapaz is having a phenomenal third week in the Tour de France. After his stage victory in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,111365,63569,85,6494,346968],"class_list":["post-822971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-ef-education-easypost","tag-richard-carapaz","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}