Pogačar’s Bastille Day Statement: A Solo Strike on the Col de Pertus to Win at Le Lioran

Curated by Gary Edgington · Race Results

The Tour de France came back to the mountains on Bastille Day, and Tadej Pogačar gave the French crowds exactly the kind of afternoon they had turned out in their tens of thousands to see — even if it was not the home win they wanted. On a brutal, seven-climb loop through the volcanic Cantal, the race leader waited until the penultimate ascent, launched a single vicious acceleration a kilometre from its summit, and rode clear of every rival he has in this race. By the time he reached the ski station at Le Lioran he had a thirty-two-second cushion, a third stage win of this Tour, and a yellow-jersey lead stretched past three and a half minutes. The rest day had changed nothing about the order of things at the top; if anything, it had only sharpened his appetite.

A Bastille Day break, and a Spaniard’s long solo

The 166.6-kilometre stage from Aurillac to Le Lioran was always going to reward aggression, and the opening hour was a war just to make the day’s move. Attack followed attack as the road pitched up and down through the Massif Central, until a large group of around thirty riders finally forced a gap — among them Mathieu van der Poel, Ben Healy, Ben O’Connor, Alex Baudin and the Movistar climber Javier Romo. UAE Team Emirates–XRG never let the leash run long, holding the escape inside a minute and a half all afternoon, but there was still room for a rider to chase the polka dots. Romo took it, going solo over the Col de la Griffoul, the Col de Prat de Bouc and the Côte de Murat and leading alone for some thirty-six kilometres, hoovering up mountain points before the sheer scale of the Puy Mary–Pas de Peyrol finally swallowed him back up.

Carapaz rolls the dice

With Romo reeled in, the stage needed a new protagonist, and Richard Carapaz supplied it. The Olympic champion and former Giro winner is riding this Tour with a breakaway’s freedom — he deliberately shed several minutes earlier in the week to earn exactly that — and he attacked out of the front group with real conviction, carving a lead of around a minute as the race tipped onto the Col de Pertus. For a while it looked as though the Ecuadorian might just have the legs and the gap to make it stick. He had not reckoned with what was climbing the mountain behind him.

Pogačar answers on the Pertus

The Col de Pertus is short and mean — 4.4 kilometres averaging 8.5 percent — and Pogačar had marked it out long before the stage began. A kilometre from the top he stamped on the pedals once, and the effect was instant: the group of favourites simply came apart behind him. He bridged to Carapaz, swept past without a glance, and crested the climb alone. Over the top he already led Vingegaard by ten seconds, and on the final ramp of the Col de Font de Cère — 3.1 kilometres at 5.8 percent, its summit less than three kilometres from the line — he only stretched it further. The plunge into Le Lioran was a victory parade. “Today was an incredible day,” he said afterwards, noting that his team had “targeted this stage for a long time” and that the roadside din — boos and cheers alike — had only spurred him on. It was his twenty-fourth career Tour stage win, and on the anniversary of a 2024 attack at this same finish that Vingegaard had once chased down, a pointed reminder of how far the balance has since tilted.

The favourites splinter

Behind the leader the general-classification group fractured into a scramble for the scraps. Vingegaard drove the chase but could make no impression on the gap, and it was Remco Evenepoel who judged the closing kilometres best, surging late to take second on the stage at thirty-two seconds. Paul Seixas thrilled the home fans with third at plus thirty-four, the young Frenchman matched on the same time by Florian Lipowitz, with Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose next at thirty-eight seconds. Vingegaard came home seventh, forty-four seconds down on the road and, once Pogačar’s ten-second winner’s bonus is added, fifty-four adrift on the day. The cruellest story belonged to Isaac del Toro: third overall at the start of the stage, the UAE youngster cracked on the final climbs, haemorrhaged a minute and a half, and slid all the way to seventh on GC.

Down but not done — and the long climbs are coming

For Visma–Lease a Bike it was another day of ceding ground, yet the team refused to frame it as a defeat. Vingegaard, pensive at the finish, insisted the damage could have been worse. “In the end, I think it was not too bad of a day,” he said. “To come away with a smaller loss like this is something I can be happy with,” adding that his legs were “getting better and better, and all the long climbs are coming.” His sports director Marc Reef struck the same defiant note — “We are here to win, and that’s why we motivated Jonas to keep fighting” — while conceding that “at the moment Pogačar is a lot stronger.” Sepp Kuss, asked whether he could see a way through, offered a blunt “at the moment, no.” Whether that faith survives contact with the Alps is precisely the question our analysis of the case for and against Vingegaard was written to weigh — and the back half of this route, stacked with the longer passes he prefers, is where it will be answered.

What it means going forward

Pogačar now leads Vingegaard by 3:36, with Evenepoel a further thirty seconds back in third and, for now, closing on the Dane rather than the yellow jersey. Ayuso, Seixas and Lipowitz fill the next places, while del Toro’s collapse cost him more than a GC position: he also surrendered the white jersey of best young rider to Ayuso, with Seixas now second in that competition and del Toro third. Pogačar, inevitably, tightened his grip everywhere it mattered, extending his lead in the mountains classification to sit alongside the yellow he already wears; Mads Pedersen’s green jersey was never in question on a day with almost nothing on offer for the sprinters. As our primer on how the Tour is won lays out, days like this are where a Grand Tour is decided — and with the biggest mountains still ahead, Pogačar has spent Bastille Day making his rivals’ task look steeper than any climb on the route.

Stage 10 — how they finished

1. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) — 3:58:08
2. Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) — +0:32
3. Paul Seixas (Decathlon–CMA CGM) — +0:34
4. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) — +0:34
5. Juan Ayuso (Lidl–Trek) — +0:38

GC after stage 10: Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) leads Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) by 3:36 and Evenepoel (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) by 4:06, with Ayuso +4:22, Seixas +4:35, Lipowitz +4:44 and del Toro +5:08; Lenny Martínez +5:45, Skjelmose +6:34 and Tom Pidcock +11:49 complete the top ten. Green: Pedersen 293 pts, Girmay 239, Merlier 213. Polka dot: Pogačar 42, Vingegaard 27, Carapaz 19. White: Ayuso, from Seixas (+0:13) and del Toro (+0:46).

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