Tadej Poga\u010dar went thermonuclear under the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9an sun on stage 6 of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar unleashed a brutal high-mountain attack Thursday that blew away all his GC rivals in the first high-mountain stage of the race.<\/p>\n
The four-time champion blasted out of his teammate Isaac del Toro\u2019s wheel 5km from the summit of the Col du Tourmalet and rode more than 40km solo to take the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n
Overnight race leader Torstein Tr\u00e6en (Uno-X Mobility) evaporated under UAE\u2019s pressure on the Tourmalet and then crashed on the descent. The Norseman came to the line 30 minutes back, his 8-minute overnight lead obliterated.<\/p>\n
Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) braced against Poga\u010dar\u2019s high-altitude assault but could barely limit his losses. The Dane finished second, more than 2:38 back.<\/p>\n
Del Toro led home a small group of GC wannabes, 19 seconds later.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar said at the finish he had one plan for the day \u2013 to demolish everybody.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is in my top-5 victories,\u201d he said in his winner\u2019s interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to do all the way to the finish, full gas. I didn\u2019t think I would take the yellow jersey today because of Torstein Tr\u00e6en,\u201d Poga\u010dar said. \u201cI heard now he [Tr\u00e6en] crashed really badly, I hope he\u2019s OK. I would still maybe prefer if he could have kept the jersey today. I hope he recovers fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems like Poga\u010dar just can\u2019t get away from that pesky maillot jaune<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n This was a devastating display of power and intent from UAE Emirates-XRG as Poga\u010dar chases a fifth yellow jersey.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar, his team, and his superdomestique Del Toro were untouchable in the first serious climbs of the race.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar started the stage 8 minutes away from the yellow jersey. He ended the stage wearing it and sitting on a deep GC cushion.<\/p>\n Vingegaard is second overall, 2:42 back on his archrival. As if that wasn\u2019t damaging enough, Poga\u010dar\u2019s teammate Del Toro is now in third, 45 seconds behind Vingegaard.<\/p>\n Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe), Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek), Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull) are stacked up a few seconds behind Pogi\u2019s partner in crime.<\/p>\n Stage 6 was a classic Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9an stage, but with a twist.<\/p>\n The legendary Aspin-Tourmalet duo towered over the center of a 185km course that stacked more than 4,000m climbing.<\/p>\n The mythical HC Tourmalet topped out at around 40km to go before a huge descent and a big ring grind to the line at Gavarnie-G\u00e8dre. This was the first time the 19km, 3.7 percent valley-road climb featured in Le Tour.<\/p>\n The message from team UAE was clear from the start of Thursday\u2019s stage: Tadej wants to win, and he\u2019s going to make it happen with brute force.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was big hype with the team from yesterday talking about this stage,\u201d Poga\u010dar said at the finish. \u201cI woke up at seven in the morning, and already my mind was going crazy. I was really, really excited.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the guys were really hyped so I knew it would be a good day. We just committed. We were going like nothing to lose,\u201d he said. \u201cToday was crazy teamwork.\u201d<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar stacked a murderer\u2019s row of climbers in front of him to set up his killer move.<\/p>\n The UAE pain train gobbled a lone attack from Ben O\u2019Connor (Jayco AlUla) on the Aspin and set a wild pace up sprawling 17km Tourmalet.<\/p>\n Tr\u00e6en was the first high-profile GC victim of Poga\u010dar\u2019s white-clad stormtroopers.<\/p>\n The Norseman popped 10km from the summit of the HC beast and hemorrhaged time. He then crashed on the descent and his 8-minute advantage over the GC bigs evaporated.<\/p>\n Superdomestiques like Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike), Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM), and Jai Hindley (Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe) also melted away under the 35 degree sun.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar\u2019s inevitable attack occurred 5km from the summit of the Tourmalet.<\/p>\n It was decisive.<\/p>\n Adam Yates peeled off the front of the bunch, and his teammates Del Toro and Poga\u010dar blazed away.<\/p>\n Vingegaard was initially blown back by the UAE 1-2, but he didn\u2019t capitulate.<\/p>\n The Visma-Lease a Bike leader limited his losses for several kilometers before Poga\u010dar pushed harder toward the summit. The four-time Tour de France champion topped the Tourmalet with more than a 30-second gap over his rivals in what was a record-breaking ascent of the climb\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n GC riders were left scattered all over the road after Poga\u010dar\u2019s Tourmalet attack, and the Slovenian didn\u2019t slow down from there.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar aced the descent from the Tourmalet and hit the base of the 19km tailwind climb to Gavarnie-G\u00e8dre\u00a0with a one-minute gap over Vingegaard.<\/p>\n All the podium hopefuls followed around one minute further back in a group of 8.<\/p>\n Evenepoel tried to incentivize the chase in the group that included Del Toro, Seixas, Lipowitz, and Ayuso, and Sepp Kuss.<\/p>\n But the collaboration wasn\u2019t there, and Vingegaard narrowly clung on in the no-man\u2019s land between Poga\u010dar and the group to finish second.<\/p>\n Vingegaard came to the line, spent.<\/p>\n\n The Tour de France turns flat on Friday. Stage 7 climbs only 800 meters across its 175km ride north from Hagetmau to Bordeaux.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar\u2019s rivals will welcome a chance to regroup after what was a full-scale assault by the Tour de France dominator.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a full preview of the second sprinter-friendly stage of the race.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/tour-de-france-stage-6-results-report\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2285363827.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated July 9, 2026 11:22AM Tadej Poga\u010dar went thermonuclear under the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9an sun on stage 6 of the Tour de France. Poga\u010dar unleashed a brutal high-mountain attack Thursday that blew away all his GC rivals in the first high-mountain stage of the race. The four-time champion blasted out of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2035776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2035776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2035776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2035776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2035776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Vingegaard has no answer to Poga\u010dar\u2019s powershow<\/h2>\n
![\"Vingegaard](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2285366136.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
UAE Emirates-XRG delivers pain in the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2285353053.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Poga\u010dar torches the Tourmalet, sets new climbing record<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2285359165.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Climbers lick wounds on Friday<\/h2>\n
Tour de France stage 6 results<\/h2>\n\n<\/div>\n