Tour de France 2022: Tadej Pogacar goes into yellow with uphill kick after astonishing Wout van Aert effort

The 109th edition of the Tour has not even reached the mountains and defending champion Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) already has the yellow jersey on his back. On the race’s longest – and fastest – day, the Slovenian superstar zipped clear of his rivals to win the uphill sprint at Longwy as Belgium Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) conceded the yellow jersey in style.

Belgium’s Van Aert put in an attacking tour de force during the 220km stage from Binche, closing down all the early moves before getting into the day’s three-man breakaway and extending his grip on the green jersey points classification. Ad/> The man in yellow was the last man standing from the breakaway after Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech) and Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo) were both jettisoned in the lumpy ride towards the finish.

Van Aert eventually succumbed to the inevitable, the plucky Stage 4 winner caught and spat out on the last of three categorised climbs with just over 10km remaining. /> Tour de FranceVan Aert goes it alone and drops Simmons in stunning display of strengthAN HOUR AGO Pogacar’s UAE squad then came to the fore ahead of the finish.

And once Frenchman Alexis Vuillermoz (TotalEnergies) was called to heel after a gutsy solo attempt on the final rise to the line, Pogacar responded to an early move from compatriot Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) to open up an commanding lead on the home straight. The double champion had time to sit up and savour the moment as he coasted to the seventh Tour stage win of his career, with Australia’s Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco) settling for second place – the same result when the Tour last came to Longwy five years ago.