Tadej Pogacar continues to close gap on Jonas Vingegaard after Tour de France stage 13

Tadej Pogacar continued to close the gap on Tour de France leader Jonas Vingegaard after a late, brutal uphill sprint in the finale of Friday's 13th stage at the top of the Col du Grand Colombier.

The UAE Team Emirates star, Tour winner in 2020 and 2021, stood on the pedals inside the last kilometre and launched a furious sprint, with Vingegaard holding his wheel before Pogacar dropped the Dane.

The Slovenian has now beaten Vingegaard in the last three mountain stages, and took third place on the day, 50 seconds behind Poland's Michal Kwiatkowski, the best of the breakaway riders.

Pogacar, who picked up four bonus seconds, trails Vingegaard by nine seconds in the general classification.

At the end of the stage Vingegaard was all smiles, while his Slovenian rival was po-faced despite his latest gain. The defending champion explained his mood by referring to the record books.

"In a final like this you can only be happy with how it worked out," said Vingegaard. "History has shown that the Tour rarely gets won by a few seconds. Maybe once or twice, maybe here too, who knows, but I don't think so."

For once Vingegaard also opened up about Pogacar after previously insisting he never thinks about him.

"It's a nice rivalry we have. He's one of the best, if not the best rider in the world and it's a nice fight we have going on," he said.

Pogacar and UAE Team Emirates set a blistering tempo from about halfway up the Colombier.

"We knew Team UAE would do this so we told some of the guys to forget about it and not get involved and this is what happened, so I think our tactics worked well," said Vingegaard.

"It might have looked like I was alone but I never felt like that, I felt my tactics worked." This is how I planned to do it,