Tour de France: second thriller on the tour: van der Poel again in yellow

Completely invalidated and sweaty, Mathieu van der Poel crouched under a parasol on the asphalt, then the anxious wait had a happy ending. It was enough – for the tiny of one second. The yellow jersey is only one day back on the shoulders of the classic king on the 112nd Tour de France. “I am happy to have the yellow jersey back. These are things that you can’t plan them,” said van der Poel.

The Dutch ex-world champion drove to eighth place behind the Irish day winner Ben Healy on the sixth stage over 2015 kilometers from Bayeux to Vire-Normandie in an outlier group. “I really suffered and was happy to have seen the finish line,” added van der Poel, who brought back the overall lead of defending champion Tadej Pogacar. It was only on Wednesday that he had lost the yellow jersey to the Slovenian exceptional cloaks in the individual time trial.

Van der Poel with the forces at the end of the climb

But the final became a second thriller. Van der Poel struggled up the last ramp and lost second by second. In the end it was 3:58 minutes behind HEALY. Pogacar, who flogged the last climb in the main field, reached the goal 5:27 minutes behind day winner Healy with the other winners. From the point of view of MVP it was not much less.

For the Paris Roubaix Champion, it is already the fourth yellow jersey on this year’s tour, and in 2021 he had been the leader for six days. Pogacar’s teammate Nils Politt was not unhappy about it: “Of course, this makes it a bit easier for us to work for the next few days. We said that we let a group drive and today we do not attach any importance to donating large energy.”

Pogacar makes it easy

So Pogacar protects his strength for other heroic deeds in the mountains. The German hopeful Florian Lipowitz, who had a strong sixth place in the individual time trial on Wednesday, also belonged to the group around Pogacar. In the end he threw everything in. “In the end, the last 200 meters went. Lipowitz is now even ahead of his captain Primoz Roglic, who lost five seconds.

Six smaller mountain ratings and a total of 3500 meters of altitude – the profile was somewhat similar to the classics in the Ardennes and was therefore tailor -made for van der Poel. The cross world champion still has a lot to do on this tour. MVP also fought for points at the intermediate sprint and apparently wants to represent the green jersey for his teammate Jasper Philipsen, who was stuck on the third stage.

Politt controlled speed

Around 130 kilometers before the finish line, an eight man strong escape group with classic outliers such as Healy or Quinn Simmons from the USA formed. In the peloton, Pogacar’s teammate Politt controlled the pace with its large engine.

The decision about the day’s victory was 41 kilometers before the finish, when Heally started alone and the co -excessers could no longer follow. Similarly, the IRE had won a stage at the Giro d’Italia in 2023.

Vingegaard bankruptcy has an effect

Pogacar’s rival Jonas Vingegaard also rolled in the favorite group inconspicuously after he had put on a crashing defeat in the individual time trial the day before, which had triggered great horror in the Danish homeland.

“Vingegaard from Pogacar Platt”, wrote the BULAVARDBLATT BT 1:05 minutes, the tour winner from 2022 and 2023 lost on the second-placed Pogacar. “We have to get the time out somewhere if Jonas wants to win the tour,” said his Visma sports director Grischa Niermann.

Perhaps already on Friday when things could get down to business on the seventh stage under the favorites. Over 197 kilometers it goes from Saint-Malo to the Mur-de-Bretagne. A two -kilometer final increase awaits the drivers with an average of 6.9 percent. Incidentally, at the last tour leakage die four years ago, the Poel on the Wall won – and the yellow jersey.