Sawt Falasteen - Pogacar extends Tour de France lead with Alpe d'Huez win

Having launched his attack with 12km left, the reigning champion finally caught Richard Carapaz and Lenny Martinez inside the final two kilometres and then dropped them with just 800m left.

It was a fifth stage victory this year for the 27-year-old Slovenian and a 26th in total since his Tour debut in 2020.

And, incredibly, it was Pogacar's first stage victory on Alpe d'Huez -- a remarkable statistic for a man who has dominated cycling for the last six years.

Martinez trailed home six seconds behind Pogacar, with Carapaz, who had won the 18th stage the day before, third at 9sec.

Pogacar increased his lead in the overall standings to more than seven minutes to Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel, who finished the stage sixth, two and a half minutes down.

Evenepoel managed to eke out a few more seconds in his advantage over third-placed Isaac Del Toro, who did likewise to Paul Seixas in fourth.

Del Toro is now at 9min 42sec with Seixas at 10:06, meaning that their battle for the best young rider's white jersey will head to Saturday's decisive penultimate stage before Sunday's procession around Paris.

Martinez did enough to jump two places to fifth overall, just nine seconds ahead of Mattias Skjelmose, who finshed the stage in eighth at 2min 45sec.

S.Abdullah--SF-PST