Pogacar launches brilliant attack on Alpe d’Huez to win stage 19 of the Tour and extend lead

ALPE D’HUEZ, France (AP) — Tadej Pogacar launched a stunning solo attack from the foot of the iconic Alpe d’Huez to win the 19th stage of the Tour de France and extend his overall lead on Friday.

Even by the four-time Tour champion’s lofty standards, it was up there with his best wins as he was more than three minutes behind with 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) remaining.

Riding without a teammate for the last section, he caught Ecuadorian rider Richard Carapaz and Frenchman Lenny Martinez with 1.5 kilometers left and then surged ahead for his fifth stage win of this year’s race and 26th overall.

“It’s very cool to win up here,” Pogacar said. “I’m super happy to take the win.”

Martinez finished six seconds behind and Carapaz — who won Thursday’s 18th stage with a brilliant breakaway win of his own — was nine seconds back. American Sepp Kuss, who faded in the closing stages, was 1 minute, 14 seconds adrift.

With a lead of 7 minutes, 11 seconds over Remco Evenepoel in the overall standings, and two stages remaining, Pogacar is on the brink of joining Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain, Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as the only men to win five Tours.

Barring mishap or accident, the Slovenian star will be crowned when the race ends on Sunday on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Rated as an HC mountain pass, the hardest category in the race, Alpe d’Huez is arguably the most famed climb in cycling and has near-mythical status on the Tour. Swarms of fans, many camping overnight and carrying flags of several nations, screamed encouragement on each of the 21 hairpins.

“It was a crazy atmosphere on the whole climb,” Pogacar said.

He kept his focus as the public got perilously close to his face and, at one stage, he had limited visibility due to smoke from flares being lit by spectators.

But as impressive as Pogacar’s win was, it also came about because Carapaz, Kuss and Martinez did not work together properly to distance Pogacar when he was lower down.

“I had to fight against super good riders,” Pogacar said. ”But they were playing against each other a bit so it helped me to catch up.”

Perhaps thinking he could benefit from others’ fading and get the stage win, Martinez kept sitting on Carapaz’s wheel, which was very much to Carapaz’s annoyance and meant the veteran had too much work to do alone.

He kept trying to accelerate while Martinez — 10 years his junior — did less work and a tired-looking Kuss generally sat back too much before drifting away.

With 900 meters left Carapaz was showing phenomenal stamina to stay with Pogacar, but he was finally undone by a brutal acceleration and could not follow as the yellow jersey rolled past him.

Saturday’s mammoth 171-kilometer Alpine stage could be epic.

It features three HC climbs — Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Galibier and Col de Sarenne — and one Category 1 climb up Col du Télégraphe before a hilly finish to Alpe d’Huez.

Pogacar does not need to go for victory and can safely hang back and protect his lead.

But will he?

There are 66 kilometers of pure climbing and that may be too much for him to resist.

“Tomorrow is the Queen stage of the Tour,” Pogacar said. “(It) is the hardest day of the Tour. We’ll follow our own plan, our own rhythm. We don’t care about anything else.”

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The Associated Press