Tour de France: Pogacar stamps his authority on the race on Col du Portet

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) stamped his authority on the Tour de France with a second stage victory atop the highest summit finish of the race, the Col du Portet.

The Slovenian, who split the general classification contender's group with an attack halfway up the 16-kilometre hors-catégorie climb, took podium contenders Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) with him as second-placed man Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-Nippo) dropped off the podium.

The trio only put more and more time into the chase group over the final eight kilometres of the stage as Sergio Higuita chased on behalf of Urán, as Pogačar tested his companions with repeated accelerations on the way up the steep slopes.

He couldn't, however, drop them on the way up, though Carapaz – who had stuck on the back of the group and looked to be in trouble – did manage to drop Vingegaard with an acceleration at 1.5 kilometres out.

The Dane was dropped before making his way back to the front 200 metres from the line. Neither he nor Carapaz had enough to push on for one last burst to the line, though, and neither could match Pogačar. He went for it 120 metres out, duly sealing the win ahead of Vingegaard with a triumphant final burst to the line, 2,209 metres above sea level.

"The team worked really hard every day to defend yellow," Pogačar said after the finish. "Every day was good for the breakaway so every day we couldn't do much, just defend. Today was a good course to defend the breakaway much better and the guys did a fantastic job. We were 50-50 – do we go for the stage or defend. In the end everyone felt good, and we tried, we succeeded and I'm super happy.

"The three of us went clear but only me and Jonas worked together. I tried a couple of times to go clear – more time is better. But they were really good today. In the end I just sprint for the last 50 metres and it was enough."

Meanwhile, Urán, who was the last man to stick with the lead trio before dropping just inside the eight-kilometre mark, was the big loser of the day, dropping from second to fourth overall as he crossed the line 1:49 down on Pogačar in ninth place. The Colombian now lies 7:17 down and 1:34 away from third-placed Carapaz, with Thursday's mountain stage and Saturday's time trial still to run.

He is now set to be riding on the defensive from Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën) after the Australian took 23 seconds with a late attack on the climb. O'Connor is now 17 seconds behind Urán ahead of stage 18's summit finish on Luz Ardiden. Further back, there was little change in the overall standings, with Enric Mas (Movistar) taking seventh from Alexey Lutsenko (Astana-Premier Tech) the only movement of note.

As well as winning the stage and adding 21 seconds to his overall lead, Pogačar also moves into the battle for the polka dot jersey for the second year in a row. With his stage win adding 40 points to his KOM total, he now lies on 67 points, just 11 down on Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) with a maximum of 62 points available on stage 18 – including another 40 at the finish.

How it unfolded

Stage 17 of the Tour de France saw a return to the high mountains in the Pyrenees as the peloton rode towards the highest summit finish of the race at the Col de Portet – 2,209 metres above sea level.

In contrast to the mountainous finale of the 178.4-kilometre stage, the opening 115 kilometres provided a long, dull run on flat roads with no obstacles to speak of for the break or peloton. After several hours on the road from Muret, the riders would hit the Col du Peyresourde (13.2km at 7 per cent) after the intermediate sprint at Bagnères-de-Luchon.

After an 11-kilometre descent into Loudenvielle, the Col de Val Louron-Azet (7.4km at 8.3 per cent) followed, before a descent to Saint-Lary-Soulan and the final, hors-catégorie climb of the Col du Portet (16.4km at 8.7 per cent).

Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels p/b KTM) was the first man to attack from the peloton, riding off alone right from the start before being caught after 15 kilometres of racing. Soon afterwards, a small group got away and put more space between themselves and the peloton.

Lukas Pöstlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe) was joined out front by Anthony Perez (Cofidis), Danny van Poppel (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Dorian Godon (AG2R Citroën), Anthony Turgis (Team TotalEnergies) and Maxime Chevalier (B&B Hotels p/b KTM) in what was hardly a star-studded breakaway on such a hard mountain stage.

Deceuninck-QuickStep crowded the front of the peloton soon after, though Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo) did slip through to mount a fruitless chase, eventually giving up at the 130-km to go mark.

The remaining 70 kilometres of flat roads towards the Peyresourde saw startling little of note occur, barring the breakaway extending their lead to 10 minutes at one point. Jumbo-Visma's Steven Kruijswijk at least gave watchers something to talk about when he abandoned the race, though.

By the time the break rolled through the intermediate just before the Peyresourde, Israel Start-Up Nation had taken charge of the peloton, holding the gap at around the eight-minute mark but failing to make any dents in the breakaway's advantage.
At the sprint, the green jersey contenders came to the fore, with Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) taking a point from Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and two from Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious).

Shortly after that – finally, after three hours of riding – the riders hit the climb, with Arkéa-Samsic setting up an attack from polka-dot jersey contender Nairo Quintana. The Colombian and teammate Élie Gesbert were joined in the move by jersey holder Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) and stage hunter Pierre Latour (Team TotalEnergies), with the quartet swiftly bringing the break's lead under six minutes.

Further back, UAE Team Emirates took to the front of the peloton en masse for yellow jersey Pogačar, reeling in Gesbert, Quintana and Poels four kilometres from the top as Latour battled on alone, four minutes behind the break.

Turgis led the break over the top of the climb, with Latour following 3:30 later, while the peloton – without key Ineos Grenadiers domestiques Tao Geoghegan Hart and Michał Kwiatkowski – was at a further 30 seconds in arrears.

By the time the riders hit the Col de Val Louron-Azet, Latour's time off the front was up, with UAE dragging him back as they rode four minutes behind the break. Up front, the break had split as Perez pushed on alone 35 kilometres from the line and five kilometres from the top.

He remained alone over the top as Godon chased alone, enjoying a 3:50 advantage over the slimmed-down peloton – led by UAE's Davide Formolo and Rui Costa – over the summit. Meanwhile, Poels jumped out at the front to bolster his KOM lead by four points at the summit as Quintana grabbed two.

Perez and Godon came together on the descent, hitting the bottom of the final climb still with a four-minute gap back to the 30-man peloton. They would only stick together for three kilometres of the climb, though, with Perez countering a dig by Godon at the 13.5-kilometre mark to set off alone.

Rafał Majka's spell on the front began shortly after, with a clear upping of the pace bringing the gap down under two minutes and shelling numerous riders from the peloton, including eighth-placed Mas and ninth-placed Guillaume Martin (Cofidis).

Perez passed the 10-km banner just 1:25 up on the peloton, which was rapidly closing in. Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) – 10th overall at the start of the day – struck out a kilometre later, but was swiftly brought back with Pogačar accelerating and passing Perez with 8.5 kilometres to go.

The race leader took the main podium contenders Urán, Vingegaard and Carapaz with him, as well as O'Connor and Carapaz's teammate Jonathan Castroviejo.

Another attack from Pogačar at the eight-km mark dislodged the latter duo, with Urán also put into trouble soon after. The Colombian dropped back to O'Connor, while his teammate and countryman Sergio Higuita was soon on hand to offer help.
David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) caught and passed the chasers at the five-km mark, with Bilbao, teammate Dylan Teuns, and Wilco Kelderman (Bora-Hansgrohe) joining the chase, which lay almost a minute down by that point.

Up front, it was just Pogačar and Vingegaard doing the riding as Carapaz looked to suffer in the wheels. In between the groups, Gaudu could make little headway, riding at 40 seconds behind as the Urán group remained a minute down heading into the final three kilometres.

Pogačar struck out again at the two-km mark, but couldn't drop his companions, trying once again a few hundred metres later to the same result. At 1.5km out, Carapaz suddenly responded, having looked on the verge of dropping off the back for the previous seven kilometres.

Vingegaard couldn't respond, leaving a man-to-man battle over the final kilometre until the Dane eventually made his way back just in time to see Pogačar's final move for victory. He passed Carapaz for second place, but the day – once again – went to the man in yellow.