Dominant Pogacar strikes back hard at Vingegaard in first Pyrenean stage in the Tour

The riders started in Pau, where Friday's thrilling stage ended. We've often started mountain stages of the Tour de France in this southern French city, earning it the nickname 'Paurt to the Pyrenees'. From the starting point, we were headed towards the pilgrimage site of Lourdes, bringing the big cols into view.

The first seventy kilometers of the stage were fairly flat, with the intermediate sprint in Esquieze-Sere being the starting point for the day's first tough climb: the Col du Tourmalet. In these initial seventy kilometers, there was a big fight for the breakaway, with a group of seventeen finally forming after the intermediate sprint. Mathieu van der Poel was among them, along with strong climbers like David Gaudu, Oier Lazkano, Ben Healy and Michal Kwiatkowski.

After Biniam Girmay and Jasper Philipsen grabbed some points for the green jersey from the breakaway, those without climbing legs quickly dropped on the Tourmalet. We were left with ten leaders on the nineteen-kilometer climb, including Van der Poel. Lazkano took the twenty mountain points at the top, followed by Gaudu and Bruno Armirail. Back in the peloton, UAE-Team Emirates led with Nils Politt, keeping the gap to no more than four minutes.

Atop the 2115-meter-high Tourmalet, we descended via La Mongie to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, where the next climb of the day began: the Hourquette d'Ancizan. With its 8.2 kilometers at 5.1 percent, it was a great climb to push the pace. Up front, only Healy, Gaudu, Lazkano, Kwiatkowski and Louis Meintjes remained, with only a little over a minute's lead over the UAE train at the top. Politt had dropped back, leaving Marc Soler to push on.

After a nine-kilometer descent to Guchen, we dropped below 1000 meters above sea level, then rode through a valley for a short while. From Saint-Lary-Soulan, we started the final climb of the day, the Pla d'Adet: over ten kilometers at nearly eight percent average gradient. Gaudu and Healy went for their (slim) chances, with Healy soloing at nine kilometers from the top. UAE's Pavel Sivakov then took over. Tim Wellens, Politt and Soler were already spent, meaning the tension was rising.

After Sivakov, at eight kilometers from the finish, it was João Almeida's turn. The tempo had to increase, as Healy held a minute's lead and the group of favorites remained relatively large. Soudal-Quick Step looked impressive, with Evenepoel, Mikel Landa and Jan Hirt. Visma | Lease a Bike had only Matteo Jorgenson left to help out Jonas Vingegaard. We were waiting for Pogacar's attack, but it didn't come. Instead, Adam Yates attacked, taking the workload off the rest of UAE.

Jorgenson took charge in the chase for Yates. The Brit convincingly caught Healy in a few kilometers, but what about 4.5 kilometers from the top? Visma was looking back, waiting for Pogacar's attack... It came hard and fast, with the Slovenian blasting up to Yates in no time. Yates now went full throttle for his leader, with Vingegaard struggling to keep up. Evenepoel managed to stay on his wheel, a potential sign of things to come. Carlos Rodriguez also looked strong.

Yates and Pogacar created a gap to the chasers, but the yellow jersey saw that the pace needed to go up even more and responded accordingly. Vingegaard also pushed, maintaining a ten-second difference. For Evenepoel, this pace was just too fast, though the Belgian wasn't much weaker than the two leaders ahead. In the last three kilometers, ten seconds became eighteen, with Evenepoel seeing the gap to Vingegaard grow. It was man against man against man, with Rodriguez again a bit behind Evenepoel.

While Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Rodriguez maintained gaps to each other in the last two kilometers, one man was pulling further and further ahead. Pogacar looked ultra-strong and kept pushing. Twenty-one seconds, twenty-two seconds, twenty-four seconds... At the finish line - with ten bonus seconds in Pogi's pocket - Vingegaard came in thirty-nine seconds behind. Evenepoel finished third, over a minute back.