2021 Tour de France – Stage 18 – Highlights, Report, Results
Highlights
Report
Tadej Pogačar made Tour de France history on his way to winning stage 18 from Pau to Luz Ardinen, becoming the first rider ever to win back to back summit finishes in the yellow jersey.
After the success of yesterday on the Col du Portet, the leader of UAE Team Emirates also triumphed in Luz Ardiden having also climbing the Col du Tourmalet which came close to the halfway point.
The big names in the race came to fore on the final climb, 13.4 km at 7.5% average gradient where a sustained pace from Rafal Majka narrowed down the group. Pogačar made a move at -3.1 km, taking only Jonas Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), Richard Carapaz (Ineos-Grenadiers) and Enric Mas (Movistar) with him. The quintet arrived in the last kilometre together before Pogačar made his move on the last ramp to arrive with a handful of seconds over his rivals.
The Slovenian consolidates his yellow jersey (5’45’’ up on Jonas Vingegaard, 2nd) and the white jersey of best youngster (Vingegaard at 5’45”), as well as jumping to the top of the mountain classification (107 points , Wout Poels is second with 29 points behind).
Results
Stage
| 1 | Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates | 3:33:45 |
| 2 | Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma | 0:00:02 |
| 3 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | |
| 4 | Enric Mas Nicolau (Spa) Movistar Team | 0:00:13 |
General Classification
| 1 | Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates | 75:00:02 |
| 2 | Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma | 0:05:45 |
| 3 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | 0:05:51 |
| 4 | Ben O’Connor (Aus) AG2R Citroën Team | 0:08:18 |
| 5 | Wilco Kelderman (Ned) Bora-Hansgrohe | 0:08:50 |
Points
| 1 | Mark Cavendish (GBr) Deceuninck-QuickStep | 298 |
| 2 | Michael Matthews (Aus) Team BikeExchange | 260 |
| 3 | Sonny Colbrelli (Ita) Bahrain Victorious | 208 |
Mountains
| 1 | Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates | 107 |
| 2 | Wout Poels (Ned) Bahrain Victorious | 88 |
| 3 | Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma | 82 |
Young Riders
| 1 | Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates | 75:00:02 |
| 2 | Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma | 0:05:45 |