{"id":26909,"date":"2025-07-27T03:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/26909\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T03:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:04:08","slug":"pogacar-closes-in-on-fourth-tour-de-france-title-groves-wins-penultimate-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/26909\/","title":{"rendered":"Pogacar closes in on fourth Tour de France title, Groves wins penultimate stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

PONTARLIER, France \u2014\u00a0Tadej Poga\u010dar\u00a0closed in on a fourth\u00a0Tour de France\u00a0title after safely finishing Saturday’s penultimate stage and maintaining his big lead over arch-rival Jonas Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

Australian rider Kaden Groves won stage 20 with a late solo breakaway, while Poga\u010dar rolled over the line about seven minutes later in the same time as Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

The Slovenian cycling star leads the two-time Tour winner Vingegaard by 4 minutes, 24 seconds, with German rider Florian Lipowitz 11:03 behind Poga\u010dar in third overall.<\/p>\n

Barring a heavy crash or illness, Poga\u010dar was expected to celebrate Sunday and move level with British rider Chris Froome on four Tour titles. Victory would also give Poga\u010dar a fifth Grand Tour after winning the\u00a0Giro d\u2019Italia\u00a0in dominant fashion last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am more or less sure of my overall victory, but I still don’t want to say anything about it. I want to stay focused until I have crossed the finish line in Paris,\u201d Poga\u010dar said. \u201cThat’s one of the most beautiful parts of this sport. We are 180 guys who spend weeks riding in the mountains and in the end, all of a sudden, we come to the streets of one of the biggest cities in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ottawa’s Michael Woods was 70th, 7:04 seconds behind Groves. Guillaume Boivin of Longueil, Que., was 139th, 28:49 behind the lead. Both were riding for Israel-Premier Tech.<\/p>\n

However, Sunday’s final stage of this edition is not a largely processional one, as is usually the case, and could potentially prove somewhat problematic toward the end with\u00a0three consecutive climbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am unsure of how the final stage will pan out,\u201d Poga\u010dar said. \u201cThe course is relatively short, and that will make for a rather punchy effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the\u00a0184.2-kilometre route<\/a>\u00a0through eastern France featured three small climbs and a moderately difficult one up C\u00f4te de Th\u00e9sy before finishing in Pontarlier. But there was scant opportunity for Vinegaard to attack Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

As the riders set off Saturday in driving rain, the yellow jersey group stayed safely at the front until breakaways formed.<\/p>\n

When the front group tackled the 3.6-kilometre C\u00f4te de Th\u00e9sy, Frenchman Jordan Jegat launched a solo attack, but he was then overtaken by Australian rider Harrison Sweeny.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As rain fell heavily again with 40 kilometres, Sweeny opened up a 50-second lead, only to be reeled in shortly after.<\/p>\n

The wet roads were treacherous at high speeds. Frenchman Romain Gr\u00e9goire and Spaniard Iv\u00e1n Romeo crashed while taking a sharp turn and slid sideways off their bikes. Both continued.<\/p>\n

Groves surged ahead 16 kilometres out and held on for his first Tour stage win and 10th at major races. The 26-year-old has two at the Giro d\u2019Italia and seven at the Spanish Vuelta.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning in all three Grand Tours is a dream of every rider,\u201d he said. \u201cWe saw today as a chance to win from the breakaway. We played our cards correctly and I had super strong legs.”<\/p>\n

Groves was 54 seconds ahead of Frank van den Broek and 59 clear of Pascal Eenkhoorn.<\/p>\n

Why is Sunday\u2019s stage different?<\/p>\n

The final stage of the Tour de France is traditionally a largely processional one, with the overall leader all-but-guaranteed to win \u2014 barring mishap \u2014 and only the sprinters contesting the stage win right at the end, following several laps around Paris.<\/p>\n

But this year\u2019s last stage is very different and could prove spectacular.<\/p>\n

Breaking with decades of tradition, it features three ascents of Montmartre Hill, a short and sharp climb which featured at last year\u2019s Paris Olympics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some riders have expressed concern that the sinewy, cobbled Rue Lepic climb, lined with heaving fans on either side at extremely close proximity, may be problematic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The final climb up Rue Lepic comes less than 7 kilometres from the end, before the riders finish on the Champs-Elys\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

Around 3,000 police officers will be deployed to ensure security over the 132.3-kilometre route, which starts from the outskirts of Paris at Mantes-la-Ville before heading into the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTARLIER, France \u2014\u00a0Tadej Poga\u010dar\u00a0closed in on a fourth\u00a0Tour de France\u00a0title after safely finishing Saturday’s penultimate stage and maintaining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-26909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}