Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel beat race leader Tadej Pogacar in a sprint finish to take Sunday’s 15th stage of the Tour de France, as former winner Jonas Vingegaard crashed out.
Evenepoel edged out the reigning champion at the end of the tough 11km-long climb to the finish. Mexican Isaac Del Toro was third, six seconds back.
After Vingegaard, who started the day in second, crashed out 20km from the finish, suffering what looked like a broken collarbone, Pogacar increased his lead in the overall standings to five minutes.
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Evenepoel, a former winner of the Vuelta a Espana, claimed his third Tour stage victory and moved up to second overall.
Del Toro climbed from seventh to third, and also snared the best young rider’s white jersey from the shoulders of Paul Seixas.
The teenage French prodigy finished fourth, almost a minute behind the winner, with German Florian Lipowitz on his wheel.
It was a bad day for Spaniard Juan Ayuso, who lost the white jersey to Seixas on Saturday and shed another minute to the Frenchman and almost two minutes to Del Toro as he dropped to sixth overall.
Evenepoel holds second place by almost a minute from Del Toro with Seixas another 25 seconds behind that.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
