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Tadej Pogacar won the 14th stage of the Tour de France in the Vosges on Saturday to extend his lead over Jonas Vingegaard to four and a half minutes.
It was the world champion's fourth stage win in this 113th edition of the Grande Boucle as his team-mate Isaac Del Toro pipped teenager Paul Seixas to second place, with Vingegaard fourth at the end of the 155km stage from Mulhouse to Le Markstein Fellering.
Four-time winner Pogacar had already stamped his authority on this Tour in the previous mountain stages but once again he emphasised his superiority with another devastating late attack.
This was his 25th Tour stage victory in total since his debut in 2020.
Behind him, the battle for the minor placings produced some thrills.
Frenchman Seixas took four bonus seconds on the line, 38sec after Pogacar, which proved enough to move him up to fourth in the overall standings, and strip Spaniard Juan Ayuso of the best young rider's white jersey -- but only by three seconds.
Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel held onto third place overall after finished strongly to come home only four seconds behind Vingegaard despite having been the first of the top seven contenders to be dropped on the final climb, the 11.2km-long Col du Haag.
He leads Seixas by just 15 seconds in the final podium position.
But the gap between Vinegegaard in second overall and Del Toro in seventh is now just 1:20, with Evenepoel's Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe team-mate Florian Lipowitz in sixth.
(O.Joost--BBZ)