TADEJ Pogacar showed he is the strongest rider over the first mountain pass of the Tour de France, taking the stage win and the yellow jersey.
Stage four of the Tour de France saw the peloton travel cross borders, as they covered 139.6km from Pinerolo in northwestern Italy to the French ski resort of Valloire.
Following yesterday’s flat stage, it took almost an hour of racing before a breakaway managed to get away.
With 108km of racing remaining, a large group of 17 broke free from the bunch and this group quickly began to grow its advantage.
Included in this breakaway was world champion Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Danish rider Christopher Juul-Jensen, who was born and raised in County Wicklow before moving to Denmark at the age of 16 to peruse professional cycling.
While the breakaway’s advantage would grow to over three minutes, as the race hit the foot of the Col du Galibier with 40km remaining this would quickly tumble.
Despite losing the yellow jersey, it was Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates teammates who would control the race, setting a hard tempo to test the legs of their rivals.
This pace would turn out to be too hard for yellow jersey Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), who saw himself distanced from the front of the race with 25km remaining.
While Ben Healy was still riding with the leaders, the ex-Irish national champion was called back to aid his teammate.
UAE Team Emirates would continue at a blistering pace until only a select group of eight remained at the front of the race.
With 800 metres remaining to the top of the Col du Galibier, Pogacar struck out and only Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) was initially able to follow before he too was eventually distanced.
With 18km of descending between Pogacar and the finish line, the Slovenian showed his nerve as he recached speeds of over 90km/h while the riders behind grouped together.
Pogacar would take the stage victory, 35 seconds ahead of Remco Evenepoel in second while Juan Ayuso finished in third.
This would put Pogacar into the yellow jersey which, along with time bonuses, he now leads by 45 seconds over Evenepoel and 50 seconds over Vingegaard.
Speaking after the stage, Pogacar said that he could not have asked for a better performance from his team:
“I am super happy. This was more or less the plan and we executed it really well.
“The team did a super good job but I didn’t want to go too early because of the wind. I had to make all the difference I could in the last few hundred metres.
“I had confidence at the start and I had good legs, so I had to try.”
Making much of his difference on the downhill section, Pogacar said his knowledge of the area proved essential to his success:
“I wanted to hit hard today and I know this stage really well.
“I have been training here for a lot of weeks in the past - It felt like a home stage. So, it was really nice to race here.
“I know the downhill, but I was a little surprised to see wet road on the first few corners. It was a bit scary.
“This descent is super-fast but if you know the road it helps.
“It was like a dream stage and to finish it off solo, it’s incredible.”
Following his top-ten finish in stage three, Carrick-on-Suir sprinter Sam Bennett finished safely within the time limit.
He will be hoping to recover well overnight, as stage five presents another opportunity for a sprint finish and potential Irish stage victory.
