It was a curious day out in the Vosges on stage 14 of the Tour de France. After the early intermediate sprint, a large breakaway snapped off the front of the peloton on the first climb, steadily whittling down to just two on the final ascent. But the peloton kept them close all the while, and a ferocious pull from Jonas Vingegaard brought the shrunken yellow jersey group back to the front. Then, inevitably ... Tadej Pogačar attacked.
The yellow jersey made his move 7.5 km from the line, and a handful of kilometres from the summit of the Col du Haag. Vingegaard's almighty effort in the 3-4 km beforehand began to conjure ideas of weakness in the Slovenian superstar, but even a tired Pogačar – if indeed he was tired – is still better than his rivals on their good days.
Behind Pogačar, Vingegaard very quickly turned his attention to those behind him, and much to the world's delight, the next-best up the Col du Haag was Paul Seixas who closed the gap to the Dane by the crest, and was only too happy to pull through on the plateau, Isaac Del Toro the only rider to catch back on. Del Toro then led them home to secure a UAE one-two 38 seconds after Pogačar, with Seixas nabbing the last remaining bonus seconds with third.
The next group comprised Juan Ayuso along with teammates Florian Lipowitz and Remco Evenepoel, the latter of whom had been distanced briefly on the climb – the road has still yet to decide between the Red Bull pair, but on stage 14, all three in their group slipped a little in the standings. Although Evenepoel holds onto third overall for now, Seixas has moved up to fourth and into the white jersey (by three seconds) just 15 seconds off Evenepoel's third.
[race_result id=17 stage_id=89789 count=5 gc=0 year=2026]
[race_result id=17 stage_id=89789 count=5 gc=5 year=2026]
Did we do a good job with this story?
