Vintage Pogacar leaves Vingegaard shattered in first mountain test

HAUTACAM, France :Tadej Pogacar unleashed a vintage assault on the unforgiving slopes of Hautacam, crushing the Tour de France 12th stage and leaving chief rival Jonas Vingegaard gasping for air and clinging to fading hopes on a brutal, suffocating Thursday.

The world champion took no prisoners in the 13.5-km climb at 7.8 per cent in stifling heat as two-time Tour winner Vingegaard finished two minutes and 10 seconds behind and now trails the defending champion by a massive 3:31 after the first high-mountain stage.

It was a sweet revenge for UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader Pogacar, who was humiliated by Vingegaard on that same climb three years ago, when the Dane was on his way to snatching his first title in the world's biggest race.

"I had always been looking forward to this climb then came the Tour de France 2022, that year I was trying to get the yellow jersey but Visma were too strong back then," a beaming Pogacar said.

"I almost had forgotten about this and then everyone came to me saying this is revenge time and then we approached the bottom of the climb and it was just a reverse story of a few years ago."

German Florian Lipowitz took third place after the 180.6 kilometre ride from Auch, 13 seconds behind Vingegaard, whose Visma-Lease a Bike team failed to live up to the hype, three years after a tactical coup had trapped Pogacar.

Podium hopeful Remco Evenepoel was dropped early in the Col du Soulor, showing his limits in the first high-mountain stage.

Although he fought his way back in the descent, his face a mask of pain, the Olympic champion cracked in the final climb and now sits 4:45 behind Pogacar, still in third place overall.

Simon Yates and Matteo Jorgenson, two of Vingegaard's lieutenants for the mountain stages,