PEYRAGUDES, France (AP) \u2014 Tadej Poga\u010dar delivered another crushing defeat to his Tour de France rivals by dominating an uphill time trial and reinforcing his grip on the yellow jersey on Friday.<\/p>\n
The brutal effort in the Pyrenees mountains was all about strength and stamina. It was just a painful experience offering no respite after already 12 grueling stages of racing. Riders first covered 2.9 kilometers to reach the bottom of the climb to Peyragudes, a daunting eight-kilometer ramp with a steep gradient.<\/p>\n
On that brutal terrain, Poga\u010dar reigned supreme and killed any suspense. He increased his lead in the general classification to more than four minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted to go all out from start to finish, smashing the pedals as much as possible,\u201d he said. \u201cI almost blew out in the end but I saw the time on the finish arch and it gave me an extra push because I saw I was going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Poga\u010dar’s 21st stage win at cycling’s biggest race.<\/p>\n
Setting off last, the three-time Tour champion was faster than everyone else on the flat section, putting five seconds into time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel. Jonas Vingegard was eight seconds off the pace through the first time check.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar was even better as soon as the road started to climb and he crossed the finish line at Peyragudes with a lead of 36 seconds over Vingegaard, his closest challenger. Primoz Roglic was third, 1 minute, 20 seconds off the pace.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar said he rode \u201con instinct,\u201d having decided not to use the race radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suffered a bit with three kilometers to go. I took a deep breath and recovered some power because I knew the last kick was super steep and I wanted to have somewhat good legs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel cracked in the climb and was overtaken by Vingegaard, who started his effort two minutes after his Belgian rival.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader, cemented his grip on the race during Thursday\u2019s first big mountain stage on the slopes of Hautacam, where he destroyed the field to take the stage win and reclaim the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n
Overall, Poga\u010dar has a 4:07 lead over Vingegaard. He has been in dominant form since the start of the season and, barring an accident, his current form leaves little doubt about who will be wearing the yellow jersey when the race finishes in Paris on July 27.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, so good,\u201d Poga\u010dar said. “We\u2019re just a bit over halfway now and it\u2019s still a long way to Paris but if we keep riding like this and don\u2019t do any mistake, then we can be satisfied with this margin.”<\/p>\n
Evenepoel salvaged his third place overall, 7:24 behind the race leader, but he was under threat from Florian Lipowitz, just six more seconds back in fourth place.<\/p>\n
After taking a beating in Hautacam, Vingegaard conceded more time to Pogacar but reassured himself by limiting his losses in the time trial. Unlike Poga\u010dar who used a road bike, Vingegaard opted for a time trial machine and used an aerodynamically designed helmet.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday was one of my worst performances and today was one of my best,\u201d Vingegaard said. “The Tour is far from over. We have to keep believing we can do something here in the race.”<\/p>\n
Ottawa’s Michael Woods finished 88th in Friday’s stage and slipped one spot to 70th overall, one hour 32 minutes 17 seconds behind Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n
Guillaume Boivin of Longueuil, Que., Woods’s Israel-Premier Tech teammate, was 165th on Friday and remained 162nd overall, 2:44:34 off the pace.<\/p>\n
The peloton faces another day of suffering during Saturday\u2019s Stage 14 from Pau to Luchon-Superbagn\u00e8res. It features four major climbs, including the final ascent to the ski resort of Superbagn\u00e8res, which is more than 12 kilometers long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEYRAGUDES, France (AP) \u2014 Tadej Poga\u010dar delivered another crushing defeat to his Tour de France rivals by dominating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-7076","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\/7076","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=7076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}