Jai Hindley’s time in the yellow jersey lasted just 24 hours after a disastrous sixth stage of the Tour de France.
Key points:
- Jai Hindley fell to XXth overall after cracking on stage six
- Two-time champion Tadej Pogačar won the stage
- Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard is in the yellow jersey
Two-time champion Tadej Pogačar won the stage in three hours, 54 minutes, 27 seconds, beating key rival Jonas Vingegaard by 23 seconds.
Vingegaard, the defending champion, is now first overall.
Hindley, who finished two minutes 39 seconds back in sixth, cracked under pressure on the famed Col du Tourmalet climb.
The West Australian started the day with a lead of 47 seconds over Vingegaard after his stunning victory on stage five, but was unable to live with the pace of defending champion Vingegaard’s Jumbo Visma teammate Sepp Kuss.
However, after his breakaway victory into Laruns, Hindley could not maintain the pace on the 144.9km stage from Tarbes to Cauterets-Cambasque.
Hindley lost around two minutes on the slopes of the Col du Tourmalet as the big favourites Vingegaard and Pogačar turned up the pace and underlined their quality on the second day of the Pyrenees.
On the decent, Vingegaard and Pogačar linked up with the breakaway led by Wout van Aert, who then drove the lead group of eight towards the base of the final climb up to the Cambasque plateau.
Hindley valiantly tried to limit his losses, with teammate Emanuel Buchmann leading the chase as Ineos Grenadiers lent their assistance.
Ahead of him though, the main favourites did battle on the tricky 16km ascent to the finish.
Van Aert drove Vingegaard to within five kilometres of the summit, at which point the defending champion took over, with Pogačar in close contention, poised to pounce.
The attack came at 2.7km to go, with Pogačar distancing his Danish rival
He had 53 seconds to make up in order to usurp his principle rival and ride into the yellow jersey.
He didn’t manage that, but struck a big blow on Vingegaard to climb to second overall, just 25 seconds behind after winning his tenth career Tour de France stage.
Hindley remains third overall, one minute and 34 seconds back.
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