Hugo Houle dedicates victory to deceased brother, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar stay together in Pyrenees | Tour de France

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, two even tougher stages will follow in the Pyrenees and there will be an individual time trial of 40 kilometers on Saturday, but for the time being Vingegaard is still firmly in yellow. The Dane received excellent help today by Sepp Kuss and Wout van Aert. The Belgian was part of the first break and dropped out when the climb had to be made on the Port de Lers, where Pogacar tried with three different attacks to release Vingegaard. That did not work and when the descent was started Pogacar quickly took off, but again it turned out to be in vain.

On the Mur de Péguère it got even harder a little later, but here too Pogacar was not strong enough to shake off Vingegaard. In the tough last three kilometers of this Pyrenees climb (about 13 percent in the last kilometers), Sepp Kuss was very important by taking the lead. Geraint Thomas and his men from Ineos Grenadiers could not compete with the climbing violence of the considerably thinned Jumbo-Visma. Thomas remains third in the general classification at 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Nairo Quintana was able to join Vingegaard and Pogacar, but the Colombian remains fourth, 4 minutes and 15 seconds behind Vingegaard.

Six minutes before the game in the standings, Hugo Houle was in charge in this stage. The 31-year-old Canadian from Israel-Premier Tech convincingly went on to win the stage, followed by his compatriot and teammate Michael Woods and American Matteo Jorgenson.

Valentin Madouas added in the last kilometer and eventually became second. Houle dedicated his stage win to his brother, who died tragically ten years ago. “This one is for my brother,” said the Canadian shortly after crossing the finish line in Foix.

Simon Geschke again took points in the mountains classification and Wout van Aert in the points classification, making the battle for the polka dot jersey and green jersey a lot less exciting at the start of the final week of the Tour.

Sepp Kuss spoke afterwards on behalf of Jumbo-Visma about a fairly carefree day, where more fireworks might have been expected from Pogacar beforehand. “I think we had everything under control. We stayed calm when the attacks came. I think we can be happy with today and that we can go into the coming stages with confidence. There are still two tough days ahead. After the rest day I felt fresh again and I think I showed that today.”

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