Tadej Pogacar regained the overall lead of the Tour de France as he stormed up the Hautacam climb to win stage 12.
Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team were expected to attack the reigning champion on the first genuine mountain stage of this year’s Tour, which ended with the first summit finish.
Pogacar was also sporting dressings on his left arm after falling at the end of Wednesday’s stage, but the Slovenian showed no ill effects as he attacked on the gruelling final climb.
The three-time winner went clear early on the 13.5km ascent and continued to stretch his lead, winning the stage by two minutes 10 seconds from Vingegaard.
That meant he reclaimed the yellow jersey from Ben Healy and more than doubled his time advantage over Vingegaard, his main rival for the general classification, who is now 3 mins 31 secs behind.
Remco Evenepoel struggled on the final climbs but did enough to prevent Florian Lipowitz moving into third place overall, while British rider Oscar Onley climbed to sixth after crossing fifth on the day.
More to follow.
