Sawt Falasteen - Pogacar again soars away from stellar field to increase Criterium du Dauphine lead

"I launched it and maintained a good pace to the top," he said at the finish.

The Slovenian had grabbed the overall lead the day before when he shot clear on the short closing climb.

On Saturday's penultimate stage, a 131.7km run from Grand-Aigueblanche, Pogacar's UAE team-mate Pavel Sivakov reduced the leading pack by setting a ferocious tempo at the front at the start of the 20-kilometre final climb to Valmeinier ski resort.

With 12km to go, Pogacar upped the tempo, standing on his pedals and rocketing clear.

As on Friday, only his main Tour de France rival Jonas Vingegaard and young German Florian Lipowitz could respond.

Vingegaard settled into a dogged pursuit.

Pogacar, without rising out of his saddle again, was able to maintain an uncatchable pace.

He increased his lead to as much as 30 seconds before relaxing up toward the end. He cruised across the line 14 seconds ahead of Vingegaard, quivering with effort as he came home.

"Today Jonas was really strong I did not want to go too deep myself," said Pogacar. "It was a super hot and long climb. Luckily, I had enough time to ease up in the last kilometres and recovered."

"Happy I could defend the jersey like this."

Lipowitz was again third at 1min 21sec Belgian Remco Evenepoel, who had led the overall classification, until Friday, finished fifth, as he had on Friday, losing 2 minutes and 39 seconds.

With one stage to go, Pogacar increased his lead to 1:01 over Vingegaard, 2:01 over German Florian Lipowitz and 4:11 to Evenepoel in fourth.

For much of the stage, Vingegaard's lieutenants on the powerful Visma team launched attack after attack, but they could not shake off Pogacar, or Sivakov, either going up or down the day's biggest climb the Col de la Croix de Fer.

"We wanted to take control on all the climbs, but Visma tried with all the attacks. I was pretty happy with how Pavel and the team rode today. It was sort of defence, to not get attacked by everyone from Visma," said Pogacar.

He complained at the way Visma had tried to drop him on the descent of the Col de Croix de Fer.

"They went a little bit dangerous in the first kilometres of the downhill," he said. "I didn't like that, but it's modern cycling," he said.

With the Tour de France starting on July 5, Pogacar beat Vingegaard to take a third stage victory in the race.

It was also the 98th of the Slovenian's career, breaking a tie with French sprinter Arnaud Demare for most by an active rider.

He has a chance for one more on Sunday when the race finishes with another mountainous stage, 133.3km from Val-d'Arc to the Plateau du Mont-Cenis.

V.Said--SF-PST