Tadej Pogacar takes yellow jersey as Kevin Vauquelin wins Stage 2 of Tour de France

Tadej Pogacar moved into the leader’s yellow jersey as Kevin Vauquelin won Stage 2 of the Tour de France from a breakaway in Bologna.

UAE Team Emirates rider Pogacar, a little over a month removed from his dominant victory in the Giro d’Italia, ignited his bid to double up in the Grand Tours with an attack late on the second ascent of the steep San Luca climb.

Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard was the only man who could initially follow, although Remco Evenepoel battled back on the descent to avoid any time losses to his main rivals.

Notably Primoz Roglic could not do the same, among a large group of riders to concede 21 seconds to the new leader, with Carlos Rodriguez, Egan Bernal, Simon Yates, Tom Pidcock and Saturday’s stage winner Romain Bardet among that number.

Asked if he had wanted to go for the stage win, Pogacar said: “No, because the breakaway was too hard and in this weather, this heat, it would be unnecessary to kill my teammates.

“We just left it to natural selection and it was like this in the end. For sure to have gone for the stage win could have also backfired so we decided to be more calm and tranquil, but in the final I tried to test myself.”

Pogacar has the yellow jersey but the day was just as significant for Vingegaard, competing in his first race since suffering a catalogue of injuries in the Basque Country in April and coming into the Tour with huge questions over his condition, but showing here at least he could live with Pogacar.

The main favourites had come to the foot of the San Luca climb for the second time still together, but as they rode alongside the famous 666 arches, gradients hitting 20 per cent on the road up to the Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca, Pogacar was biding his time