And two for Tadej Pogacar! The favorite and yellow jersey of the Tour de France won again on Friday in the seventh stage of the Tour de France, at the top of the Super Planche des Belles Filles, in the Vosges mountains.
Pogacar (UAE) narrowly edged Dane Jonas Vingegaard this time to win his second stage in the 2022 Tour.
To win the first arrival at the top of the event, the outgoing winner had to work against Vingegaard, whom he overwhelmed in the last meters of the climb, on the unpaved part.
Two years after overturning the 2020 Tour to his advantage in a memorable time trial, Pogacar won again in the Haute-Saône resort, which will host the conclusion of the Tour de France Women on July 31.
Behind the first two of the 2021 Tour, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic took third place, twelve seconds, ahead of the German Lennard Kämna, caught 80 meters from the line.
Briton Geraint Thomas and Frenchman David Gaudu limited the loss of time to less than 20 seconds compared to Pogacar.
In this sunny 176.5 kilometer stage, the survivors of a breakaway launched from afar, 125 kilometers from the finish, approached the final climb with a lead limited to less than a minute and a half due to the pursuit long driven by the Pogacar team.
The yellow jersey asked his training to be able to play for the stage victory that the members of the breakaway (Geschke, Kämna, Schachmann, Teuns, Durbridge, Barthe, Erviti) were aiming for.
In the ascent (7 km at 8.7%), Kämna distanced his compatriot Simon Geschke five kilometers from the summit. He resisted for a long time the return of the group of favorites led by the men of Pogacar (McNulty, G. Bennett, Majka) and stumbled on the final wall, in the dust.
In the general classification, Pogacar increased his advantage over Vingegaard to 35 seconds. Geraint Thomas, third, is clocked in at 1 min 10 sec.
The 23-year-old Slovenian now has eight stage successes in the Tour, of which he has won the final classification twice (2020 and 2021).
