Pogacar takes Tour de France lead with stage six win

LONGWY, France: Tadej Pogacar is back in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. And it’s earlier than perhaps even he expected.

On the way to his wins in the 2020 and 2021 Tours, Pogacar took the yellow jersey in the mountains, but on Thursday all he needed was the modest Cote des Religieuses hill in the border town of Longwy.

Asked about the prospect of being back in yellow, which wasn’t confirmed when he was speaking, Pogacar said in televised comments that for now he was focused on the stage win and “anything else is just a bonus.”

After an imposing sixth stage of nearly 220 kilometers (137 miles) through Belgium and northern France — the longest of this year’s Tour — Pogacar pulled away in the sprint finish on the crest of the Cote des Religieuses to take his first stage victory this year ahead of David Gaudu and Michael Matthews on Thursday.

Pogacar now leads the Tour by four seconds ahead of American rider Neilson Powless, thanks to the bonus seconds based on stage placings.

“Every time I win it’s even better,” Pogacar said. “We rode the last two climbs really hard, it was above our thresholds. It was super hard for the final climb and hectic and everything. I guess I had good legs to push in the end.”

Wout Van Aert was the leader heading into the stage and was the focus of attention with a breakaway, but was caught with 11 kilometers remaining. Van Aert dropped off on the hilly final section of the stage and eventually lost more than seven minutes.

It’s the earliest that Pogacar has worn yellow on the Tour after taking the lead on the 20th stage in 2020 and the eighth stage last year.

Friday sees the Tour’s first mountain stage and a return to a place where the UAE Team Emirates rider made his name. The