Defending champion Tadej Pogacar put the hammer down on the Tour de France on Saturday as he claimed the overall leader's yellow jersey with a vintage ride on the eighth stage, a 150.8-km Alpine trek from Oyonnax to Le Grand Bornand on Saturday.
The young Slovenian attacked on the penultimate ascent of the day, the Col de Romme, to distance all his rivals in a long-range move reminiscent of racing in the 1980s, as Belgian Dylan Teuns won the day’s laurels from the early breakaway.
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Pogacar was fourth on the stage behind Spain’s Ion Izaguirre and Canadian Michael Woods, who were second and third respectively, 49 seconds off the pace but with an advantage of more than three minutes on all his rivals for the general classification.
Last year’s runner-up Primoz Roglic of Slovenia and Briton Geraint Thomas, the 2018 champion, were distanced early on and have pretty much zero chance of a podium finish in Paris, having suffered crashes in the first days of racing.
Overall, Pogacar leads Belgian Wout van Aert by one minute 48 seconds and Kazakhstan's Alexey Lutsenko by 4:38.
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