Tadej Pogačar danced away from the Tour de France once again on Saturday, winning stage 14 into Le Markstein Fellering for his fourth stage victory of this year's race. On the 155.3km mountain stage from Mulhouse through the Vosges, the Slovenian attacked roughly 1.5km below the summit of the Col du Haag, and within moments the race for yellow was effectively over for another day.
Nobody could follow. Pogačar crested the climb alone and powered across the plateau to the line in a winning time of 4:00:07, with his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Isaac del Toro leading home the chase at 38 seconds. French teenager Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM took third at the same gap, while Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz and Juan Ayuso rolled in 50 seconds down.
The victory extended the general classification lead Pogačar has been building since his summit win on stage 10, when his advantage stood at 3:36. It is now 4:30 over Jonas Vingegaard of Visma-Lease a Bike, with Evenepoel of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe third overall at 5:04. With the yellow jersey also topping the mountains classification, his rivals increasingly appear to be racing for second.
Seixas was the day's other winner. Third on the stage lifted the 19-year-old to fourth overall at 5:19 and into the white jersey of best young rider, which he took from Ayuso by a mere three seconds, with Del Toro a further 28 seconds back in that contest.
In the points classification, the sprinters' battle that has simmered since Stian Wærenskjold's record-breaking sprint win on stage 11 continues: Mads Pedersen leads on 397 points from Jasper Philipsen on 361, with Biniam Girmay third on 347.
There is no respite. Sunday's stage 15 takes the race 183.9km from Champagnole to another summit finish at the Plateau de Solaison, where Vingegaard and Evenepoel must find something — anything — to disturb a champion in full flight.
