Rodriguez wins Alpine stage as Vingegaard retains slim Tour lead

Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard fought off a ferocious attack from Tadej Pogacar on the first of four Alpine tests in the Tour de France on Saturday as Spain's Carlos Rodriguez won stage 14.

Ineos rider Rodriguez climbed into third place overall by one second from Australian rider Jai Hindley with a great climb and daredevil downhill finish.

"Its incredible, something I always dreamed of," said 22-year-old Rodriguez as Ineos won again following Michal Kwiatkowski's triumph on Friday.

Vingegaard now leads Pogacar by 10 seconds after winning a war of nerves in the battle for the title.

"It was a very hard fight once again today. I was happy to gain that second in the end," the Dane said with a broad smile.

On the last of the day's ascents, Jumbo's Sepp Kuss took Vingegaard as far as he could before Pogacar's own lieutenant Adam Yates attacked with the Dane isolated.

Pogacar then launched his blistering turn of pace and opened a five second gap only for the Dane to doggedly track and then reel in the exasperated Slovenian with 2km still to climb.

Vingegaard drew level with his younger rival and eyed him, but the latter refused to look back.

Pogacar tried again atop the 17km climb to burst past last year's winner but was blocked in the narrow passage of fans by a motorbike carrying a photographer.

Instead Vingegaard then burst ahead and took three bonus seconds at the top of that last climb.

An infuriated Pogacar wasted precious energy racing past his rival in a show of anger, but later refused to be drawn on the episode.

"If I have to draw a balance here it was a good, positive day and we can go into the coming days with confidence," he said.

"As for the motorbike, it couldn't move, it is what it is," he said.

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