In a titanic battle, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won the second round in the Pyrenees, managing to let go of Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) on the final climb, after riding 144.9 kilometers between Tarbes and Cauterets-Cambasque.
The Slovenian cyclist was the first to cross the final peak after a spectacular stage through the Pyrenean mountains. In second place came the new leader Jonas Vingegaard and third came the Norwegian Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team), who put in an excellent performance.
As for the beetles, they did not have their best day. Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) was the best Colombian in the 39th box, 9:48 behind the winner, then Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan Team) arrived in 50th place; Esteban Chaves (EF Education EasyPost) finished 57th and Daniel Felipe Martínez (Ineos Grenadiers) 76th. While Rigoberto Urán (EF Education EasyPost) entered 123rd at more than 30 minutes.
The opening phase on flat ground formed a leading duo with Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step), the two riders were the first two to clear the pack but were given little space and behind them a large group of cyclists caught up with them minutes later.
In addition to the aforementioned duo, the break was made up of Ruben Guerreiro (Movistar), Anthony Perez (Cofidis), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step), Oliver Naesen (AG2R Citroën), Matteo Trentin (UAE ), Michał Kwiatkowski (INEOS Grenadiers), James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Nikias Arndt (Bahrain Victorious), Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R Citroën), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech), Christopher Juul-Jensen (Jayco AlUla), Matis Louvel (Arkéa-Samsic), Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) and Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X).
The large escape encouraged the race for a large part of the journey, but entering the last 50 kilometers, the breakaway began to lose units and at the end everything was reduced to the duel Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) vs. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Tem Emirates).
The French round will live this Friday, July 7, the seventh section, designed over 144.9 kilometers between Tarbes and Cauterets-Cambasque and which includes a third-category mountain prize: Côte de Béguey (1.2 km at 4.3%).
Source: Revista Mundo Ciclístico