Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar on Saturday maintained his lead at the Criterium du Dauphine with a second consecutive stage victory in France.
The reigning Tour de France and road world champion went clear 12 kilometres from the finish on the final ascent of Saturday’s 132km ‘Queen Stage’ from Grand-Aigueblanche to Valmeinier.
The race, a traditional warm-up for the Tour de France, which begins on Saturday, July 5, concludes with another mountainous stage covering 133.3km from Val-d’Arc to the Plateau du Mont-Cenis.
Pogacar is a three-time Tour de France winner.
He finished 14 seconds ahead of his closest rival, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard.
“Today Jonas was really strong. I did not want to go too deep myself. It was a super hot and long climb. Luckily, I had enough time to ease up in the last kilometres and recovered.”
“Happy I could defend the jersey like this,” said Pogacar after securing his 98th career stage win, moving ahead of French sprinter Arnaud Demare for the most by an active rider.
The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider had taken the yellow jersey with a dominant victory in Friday’s stage six.
The 26-year-old holds a lead of one minute and one second over the Visma-Lease a Bike man going into Sunday’s final stage.
“I launched it and maintained a good pace to the top,” Pogacar said.
Germany’s Florian Lipowitz was third in the stage but is two minutes and 21 seconds behind Pogacar while Remco Evenepoel lost more time and is now fourth overall, a further one minute and 50 seconds back.
Stage seven results
1. T Pogacar (Slo/UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 4hrs 10mins 0secs,
2. J Vingegaard (Den/Team Visma-Lease a Bike) +14secs,
3. F Lipowitz (Ger/Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) +1min 21secs
4. T Halland Johannessen (Nor/Uno-X Mobility) +2mins 26secs
5. R Evenepoel (Bel/Soudal Quick-Step) +2mins 39secs
6. B Tulett (GB/Team Visma-Lease a Bike) +3mins 48secs
7. E Mas (Spa/Movistar Team) same time
8. E Buchmann (Ger/Cofidis) +3mins 51secs
9. C Rodriguez (Spa/Ineos Grenadiers) same time
10. G Martin-Guyonnet (Fra/Groupama-FDJ) same time
