San Francisco Frontiers - Pogacar extends Tour de France lead with 'cool' Alpe d'Huez win

Having launched his attack with 12km left, the reigning champion finally caught Richard Carapaz and Lenny Martinez inside the final two kilometres.

"It's very cool to win up here -- it was a crazy atmosphere, all the climbing," said Pogacar.

"It was thanks to all the team that I could pull it off in the end.

"I was riding for the team-mates today and it was a great victory," he said.

Several of Pogacar's UAE Emirates-XRG team-mates have been suffering with illness and Brandon McNulty abandoned the race on Thursday with flu-like symptoms.

Pogacar had made up close to three and a half minutes since the foot of the climb and he wasted little time in leaving the pair in his wake, dropping them with just 800m left.

"We were going full gas all day and then at the beginning, the first kilometre of Alpe d'Huez, I knew that it's cool, I have good legs and there's not many guys left that maybe can follow or try to go with me," said the race leader.

"So I tried and then I committed to the top."

It was a fifth stage victory this year for the 27-year-old Slovenian and a 26th in total since the four-time winner's Tour debut in 2020.

And, incredibly, it was Pogacar's first stage victory on Alpe d'Huez -- a remarkable statistic for a man who has dominated cycling for the last six years.

Martinez trailed home six seconds behind Pogacar, with Carapaz, who had won the 18th stage the day before, third at 9sec.

Pogacar increased his lead in the overall standings to more than seven minutes to Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel, who finished the stage sixth, two and a half minutes down.

He is now within touching distance of a record-equalling fifth Tour victory.

Evenepoel managed to eke out a few more seconds in his advantage over third-placed Isaac Del Toro, who did likewise to Paul Seixas in fourth.

Del Toro is now at 9min 42sec with Seixas at 10:06, meaning that their battle for the best young rider's white jersey will head to Saturday's decisive penultimate stage before Sunday's procession around Paris.

Martinez did enough to jump two places to fifth overall, just nine seconds ahead of Mattias Skjelmose, who finished the stage in eighth at 2min 45sec.

- Carapaz takes polkadot jersey -

It was another day of frenetic racing at the Tour as a breakaway group containing more than 40 riders went clear within the first few kilometres of the 127.9km stage from Gap.

Valentin Paret-Peintre and Carapaz continued their battle for King of the Mountains polkadot jersey points, with the Frenchman cresting both the Col Bayard and the Col du Noyer first ahead of the Ecuadorian.

But those were the last points the Frenchman would earn and Carapaz did enough to claim the jersey off Pogacar's shoulders by a single point, with Paret-Peintre seven points off the lead.

Once the leaders hit the Col d'Ornon in the final 35km, the group broke up with only 15 riders left at the top of the climb, and just 10 in the yellow jersey group four minutes down the road.

The leaders still had an advantage of three and a half minutes at the foot of Alpe d'Huez.

Thymen Arensman made the first move with 12.5km left but eventually it was Carapaz, Martinez and American Sepp Kuss who broke clear.

But three minutes further back, Pogacar made his move and immediately distanced his rivals for the overall victory.

The reigning champion had almost caught the leading trio with 3km left but Carapaz kicked on, while behind, Evenepoel attacked Seixas, Del Toro and Skjelmose.

Pogacar caught Carapaz with 1.8km left, but with Martinez clinging to his wheel.

But another acceleration saw Pogacar drop his two rivals with 800m to ride.

P.Adams--SFF