MICHAL KWIATKOWSKI HELD off the charge of Tadej Pogacar to take a solo win on stage 13 of the Tour de France as Jonas Vingegaard just clung on to the yellow jersey.
Former world champion Kwiatkowski caught and immediately passed four other members of the day’s break to go alone with 11km of the 17km Grand Colombier climb remaining, and had enough in reserve to stay clear of the main group of favourites.
Just as Kwiatkowski was crossing the line, Pogacar launched an attack to try to shake Vingegaard, his sights set on taking the yellow jersey.
The Slovenian managed to open up a few bike lengths and rolled in third, picking up four bonus seconds although not enough time to move into the race lead, Vingegaard’s 17-second gap at the start of the day now reduced to just nine.
Pogacar’s UAE squad had sought to control what had been a 19-strong breakaway with designs on repeating his stage victory on this mountain from 2020.
But having hit the foot of the climb four minutes behind the surviving escapees, they could not reduce that gap quickly enough, with Kwiatkowski’s margin of victory 47 seconds from fellow breakaway rider Maxim van Gils and 50 seconds from Pogacar.
