On a short final mountain stage Pogacar
out-ran his two closest rivals, Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz, just as
he did on the previous day's mountaintop finale.
The 2020 champion continued the most
dominant run in recent Tour memory.
The peloton left Pau under a shadow
Thursday after a overnight anti-doping raid on Pogacar's Bahrain-Victorious
team at their hotel.
But by the time an Ineos quartet were
leading the remnants of the pack up the final climb of this Tour de France, the
focus was on the possible challenges to the leader on the road.
With 3km left Pogacar, Vingegaard and
Carapaz were again left to cross swords in the battle to the finish. It was
quickly settled. Pogacar raced ahead with ease over the last kilometre and
slowed down as he crossed the line for his third stage win on this edition.
"I felt good and I'm really happy with
the win. It's a game for me, I'm enjoying playing it," said the
22-year-old.
The Slovenian UAE team leader then turned
his attention on the time-trial on Saturday.
"You can lose six minutes over 30km
like that," he said.
Pogacar leads the Dane Vingegaard by almost
six minutes with Carapaz right on the Jumbo man's tail in third with three
stages left, aflat run Friday, the time-trial and Sunday's Parade into Paris.
-AFP