{"id":528463,"date":"2026-07-06T21:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/528463\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T21:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:00:13","slug":"pogacar-rises-above-wildfire-restrictions-to-take-yellow-jersey-in-deserted-les-angles-tour-de-france-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/528463\/","title":{"rendered":"Pogacar rises above wildfire restrictions to take yellow jersey in deserted Les Angles | Tour de France 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tour de France organisers have insisted that the fourth stage on Tuesday, from Carcassonne to Foix, will go ahead, despite furnace conditions in southern France and predicted temperatures of more than 40C (104F).<\/p>\n

The 182km stage, scheduled to run through the heat of the afternoon, comes after the Tour\u2019s third stage to Les Angles was held without the usual publicity caravan and only small numbers of fans, to avoid increasing the risks posed by wildfires raging in the eastern Pyrenees.<\/p>\n

Those concerns, however, did not derail Tadej Pogacar<\/a>, whose UAE team controlled the closing kilometres of the stage, reeling in the last remaining escapee, Alex Baudin, to set up the four-time champion for his 22nd stage win and first yellow jersey of 2026.<\/p>\n

Pogacar won the stage from a strained Jonas Vingegaard with a typically explosive acceleration. That took him level on time with the Dane, but his stage win also ensured that he reclaimed the overall race lead.<\/p>\n

Already, the Slovene and his team seem to have a psychological stranglehold on the race. Vingegaard, whose Tour started so promisingly, is in danger of slipping behind his old rival. \u201cWe love to race and we\u2019re here to race for the victory,\u201d Pogacar said. \u201cWe saw there was a possibility to go for the stage and take yellow and that\u2019s exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogacar, however, described the continuing heatwave as a \u201clogistical nightmare\u201d. He said: \u201cWhen it\u2019s hot, like today, we really start to put a lot of effort into bringing water and ice up to the riders. Three guys have to go back to the [team] car and this makes a big difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, we have trained in the heat with a support car behind, but then some days you do three hours without a car, and you think you are really shit because you overheat. Cooling is really important. It\u2019s dangerous if you don\u2019t keep your body temperature down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Active fires shown around stages 3 and 4 of the Tour de France<\/a>Fires in the eastern Pyrenees shown by proximity to stages 3 and 4 of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

Pogacar\u2019s 22nd Tour stage win fuelled talk of him closing further on Mark Cavendish\u2019s win record of 35 but the Slovene, despite being in such dominant form, dismissed the suggestion. \u201cIt\u2019s still far away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe today was my last victory ever. I prefer to stay in the moment and enjoy this victory. I don\u2019t want to think about Mark\u2019s record. Just go with the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

After two celebratory finishes in Barcelona, the Tour\u2019s return to France was a moribund affair. Once the peloton was through the border crossing with Spain at Puigcerd\u00e0, the crowds at the roadside thinned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum had messaged me saying she couldn\u2019t come to see the stage, but then at 20 kilometres to go it was full of people,\u201d Pogacar said. \u201cBut it was a little bit sad to just see photographers and not the usual big crowd around the finish area.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Fortnightly<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Hotspot<\/p>\n

A new fortnightly newsletter covering the intersection of sport and the climate crisis<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At Les Angles \u2013 the remote village just below the final climb \u2013 cafes and bars were almost deserted, giving the finish the air of a ghost town. The town\u2019s mayor, Michel Poudade, suggested the Tour organisation and the prefecture had gone \u201ctoo far\u201d with their safety measures. \u201cIt\u2019s sad and it\u2019s disappointing,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a village of 680 people. It\u2019s heartbreak. There are businesses here that are going to really lose out. We expected 20,000 to 25,000 people here. That\u2019s all gone, all at once. I think things could have been done differently. Everyone\u2019s been building up to this for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor said that no compensation has yet been offered to the small resort town, although the Tour may plan to return soon, to make up for the town\u2019s disappointment.<\/p>\n

Tadej Pogacar tries to cool down after winning the stage. Photograph: Tomas Sisk\/GodingImages\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

However, the risk of further wildfires remains and 61 French regions are now on orange heatwave alert. Temperatures as high as 41C are expected in Languedoc\u2011Roussillon in the coming days, which, with stage finishes in Foix and Pau on Tuesday and Wednesday, seems certain to have an impact on the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety of the riders and the public is our priority,\u201d the local prefecture reiterated. While some of the riders claim to have acclimatised to the sweltering conditions, the risks to roadside spectators remain. The French authorities have given permission for stages to be cancelled, but only in \u201cexceptional\u201d conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tour de France organisers have insisted that the fourth stage on Tuesday, from Carcassonne to Foix, will go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-528463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}