Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar consolidated his lead on the Criterium du Dauphine with a second consecutive stage victory in France.
The reigning Tour de France and street world champion went clear 12 kilometres from the end on the ultimate ascent of Saturday’s 132km ‘Queen Stage’ from Grand-Aigueblanche to Valmeinier.
Slovenia’s Pogacar finally completed 14 seconds forward of his closest rival, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard.
The UAE Crew Emirates-XRG rider had taken the yellow jersey with a dominant victory in Friday’s stage six and the 26-year-old now holds a lead of 1 minute and one second over the Visma-Lease a Bike man going into Sunday’s ultimate stage.
“I launched it and maintained a superb tempo to the highest,” stated Pogacar after securing his 98th profession stage win, transferring forward of French sprinter Arnaud Demare for essentially the most by an energetic rider.
“At this time Jonas was actually robust. I didn’t need to go too deep myself. It was an excellent sizzling and lengthy climb. Fortunately, I had sufficient time to ease up within the final kilometres and recovered.”
“Joyful I may defend the jersey like this.”
Germany’s Florian Lipowitz was third within the stage however is 2 minutes and 21 seconds behind Pogacar whereas Remco Evenepoel misplaced extra time and is now fourth general, an additional one minute and 50 seconds again.
The race, a conventional warm-up for the Tour de France, which begins on Saturday, 5 July, concludes with one other mountainous stage protecting 133.3km from Val-d’Arc to the Plateau du Mont-Cenis.
