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Vingegaard endures the lunges of Pogacar in Mende

Vingegaard and Pogaca on the climb to Mende AFP

Tower of France

Cycling

The Dane maintains his difference against the leader of the UAE in a stage that the Australian Michael Matthews won alone

There where ONCE put the supremacy of Miguel Indurainthere where Omar Friar won the last Spanish stage in the Tour de France, in the ascent to the old and cobbled Mende, the two-time champion Tadej Pogacar tries to recover what was his.

The Slovenian holds on at the head of a long and divided peloton (injured after a day full of shocks), follows the leader’s wheel Vingegaard and wait for your chance. In the middle of the short and intense port, Tadej attacks, picks up Thomas and Yates, looks back and, a few centimeters from his back, there is the yellow jersey. Pogacar does not stop in his business, he gets up from his bike again and again, he wants to cut seconds before the decisive Pyrenees, but the Dane seems to be made of stone. Both reach the finish line as they have done in the bulk of this Tour: overlapping, on the verge of friction. Only the Dane in the Granon was able to break the adherence and, for now, that gap between the two keeps him dressed in yellow.

A few minutes before the duel of favorites, Luis León Sánchez tries to end the drought of a Spanish cycling team that was once great. The 38-year-old from Murcia sneaks into the breakaway, begins the hard and last ascent of the day in the lead and dreams of winning again in the cradle of cycling ten years after the last time.

But, as happened a few days ago in Megève, where he was close to victory, his fifth stage in the French event is resisting him. is the oceanic Michael Matthews who celebrates after enduring Bettiol’s wheel with suffering, gritting his teeth and attacking on the last slope before glory. The man from Canberra ends this fourteenth stage alone, raising his fists and shouting to the winds “he always keeps believing” as he crosses the finish line. His Tour has already been worth it.


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