Pogacar attacks on steepest climb to clinch fourth Tour de France stage win
Tadej Pogacar’s rapacious appetite for stage wins was in evidence yet again in the climbs of the Vosges, as he raced to his fourth victory of this year’s Tour de France at Le Markstein.
Pogacar’s attack came 1.6 km from the summit of the final climb, the Col de Haag and 7.5 km from the finish line and left Jonas Vingegaard, Paul Seixas and Florian Lipowitz in his wake.
But Seixas, a discreet presence since the opening weekend in Montjuic, matched Vingegaard on the rolling descent to the finish line, before dropping the double winner on the sprint to the finish and taking the lead in the young rider’s classification.
The stage proved a setback for Tom Pidcock, whose challenge came apart on the early slopes of the Col de Haag, when Seixas’s Decathlon team shattered the main peloton on behalf of their teenage leader, by setting a relentless rhythm.
Almost immediately, Pidcock lost ground and could only watch as Pogacar and Vingegaard rode on at the head of the group. In a few minutes, the British rider had tumbled from second overall earlier in the stage, to ninth overall.
Ahead of them all, Richard Carapaz, the last of the escapees, was again closing on a stage win, just as he had been on Bastille Day, before Pogacar sped past him to win. Yet again, however, the Ecuadorian relived that disappointment as the relentless Slovene, riding with the favourites, caught him with just over8km to go.
From extreme heat to monsoons, the peloton have had to master all weathers during this year’s Tour. On Saturday, a deluge flooded the finish line at Le Markstein just as Pogacar’s team decided to close down the day’s breakaways.
The storm broke over the peloton on the descent of the Col de Page with Pogacar and his team briefly distancing Vingegaard on the slick bends to the valley floor. The Dane and his Visma Lease-a-bike team were quick to respond, but it was a warning of what was to come.
By the time the sun came out again, the early advantage of a small group of five, that included Easy Post’s Ben Healy and his teammate Carapaz, was gradually dwindling. By the time they were halfway up the final climb to Le Markstein, with Pogacar unleashed behind them, the game was up.
It now seems the speculation linking the Tour leader to competing in this year’s Vuelta a España is well founded. The Spanish race is the only Grand Tour he has yet to win.
The 2026 race stages its Gran Salida in Monaco and Prince Albert told the media on Friday that “Pogacar said he would be at the start, so I hope that happens.” Asked about the comments, Pogacar said: “If the prince said, it’s a high chance.”
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Seixas may be the youngest pretender to Pogacar’s throne, but Luke Rowe, the former Team Sky road captain who is now the influential lead sports director at the French rider’s Decathlon team, struck a pragmatic note.
Asked if Pogacar could still be thwarted, Rowe said: “Its nice to be optimistic but sometimes you have to be realistic. The realistic situation is that there is one guy substantially better than the rest of the leaders and the rest of the peloton.”
The Welshman also made it clear that those still choosing to challenge Pogacar should do so with caution. “How many times have we seen a guy follow Pogacar, explode and lose time?”
“If you’re racing GC [general classification], then a lot of days it’s about getting from A to B, being patient and conservative, which some people think is being boring but that’s what it takes to be on the podium in the Tour.”
