TADEJ POGACAR extended his lead in the Tour de France with a Bastille Day stage win today that put to bed his frustration from two years ago.

Pogacar went solo with a little over 15km remaining of the 166.6km mountain stage into Le Lioran, where the Slovenian was memorably beaten by rival Jonas Vingegaard in a two-man sprint in 2024.

This time the gap between them was not a few centimetres but 44 seconds as Vingegaard came home seventh on the stage, with Remco Evenepoel second, 32 seconds down and a few bike lengths in front of French teenager Paul Seixas.

Pogacar’s overall advantage over Vingegaard grew to three minutes 36 seconds after his third-stage win of this Tour, and 24th of his career, while Evenepoel moved up to third, 30 seconds behind Vingegaard.

Pogacar had insisted this day was not about revenge for last time, but his determination to win was obvious as his team marshalled the usual frenzy to get in the Bastille Day breakaway.

Former Giro d’Italia winner Richard Carapaz got clear on the Puy Mary, the third from last climb, but never had more than a minute’s advantage.

When Pogacar attacked on the penultimate climb, he took 45 seconds out of the Ecuadorian in the space of a few hundred metres, riding away to his third career Bastille Day stage win in the Tour.

“Today was an incredible day,” said Pogacar as he strengthened his pursuit of a record-equalling fifth Tour title.

“The team did a super good job. We had been targeting this stage for a long time, also with what happened two years ago when Jonas beat me in the sprint fair and square. Today I had similar legs to the finish, completely destroyed.

“I enjoyed the day in the final. I didn’t know I was going to win until the last kilometres. Then I remembered it was Bastille Day and tried to honour the yellow jersey.”

Tom Pidcock crashed on the descent of the Puy Mary, but recovered to finish ninth on the stage, climbing to 10th overall.