Tadej Pogacar all but officially confirms 3rd career Maillot Jaune with 10th Grand Tour stage win of the year on stage 19 of 2024 Tour de France

The queen stage of this 2024 Tour de France, Tadej Pogacar again proved himself by far the strongest rider in the race, as the UAE Team Emirates all but officially confirms a first Giro/Tour double since 1998 and the third Maillot Jaune win of his career with a 10th Grand Tour stage win of the year.

In a thrilling opening to the day, Team Visma | Lease a Bike were in full attack mode, sending rider after rider up the road in both an attempt to put the pressure on UAE Team Emirates and Tadej Pogacar, plus giving Jonas Vingegaard potential satellite riders for any long range attack.

As things began to settle down slightly on the first climb of the day, a group of 9 riders built up an advantage over the peloton. Among the leader, two Visma riders in Matteo Jorgenson and Wilco Kelderman, plus the likes of former Grand Tour winners Jai Hindley, Simon Yates and Richard Carapaz, with Nicolas Prodhomme, Oscar Onley, Ilan Van Wilder and Cristian Rodriguez completing the group.

With the break building up a four minute advantage on the first climb and the subsequent descent, as the second HC climb of the day began, Onley and Prodhomme quickly dropped out the back of the lead group. Soon after, Ilan Van Wilder too was gone.

Nils Politt was doing an absolute monster turn on the front of the peloton a little further back, and decimated the Maillot Jaune group. Although the gap was coming down slowly, at the top of the Cime de la Bonette, the breakaway's advantage was still over three and a half minutes. Notably, Carapaz took maximum King of the Mountains points, moving into provisional lead of the classification.

At the foot of the Isola 2000, the final climb of the day, the breakaway had a four minute lead. Their number was soon diminished again though, as Rodriguez immediately struggled once the road began to ascend again. Despite Kelderman and Jorgenson setting a brutal pace at the front of the race, Adam Yates was drilling into the time gap on the front of the peloton.

Jai Hindley was the next man dropped from the lead group, with Jorgenson attacking almost immediately after. As the American rode 30 seconds clear from his breakaway companions at 10km to go, the UAE Team Emirates led GC group was now three minutes further down the road. That group was diminishing as well, with Carlos Rodriguez the most notable rider put into difficulty.

Then with around 9km to go, Pogacar launched and immediately distanced both Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel, who began to race amongst themselves in a fight for 2nd. As the UAE Team Emirates leader began picking his way through the breakaway riders, at 6km to go, Jorgenson's lead had been slashed to just 1:27 over Pogacar, with Yates and Carapaz still somewhere in between. With Evenepoel putting the pressure on Vingegaard behind, the Visma leader had moved into defensive mode, following the Belgian's back wheel.

With 2km still to go, Pogacar caught and passed Jorgenson, moving into the lone lead. As a reminder, when the Slovenian launched his attack, Jorgenson was 2:44 up the road! With Evenepoel and Vingegaard now nearly two minutes down on Pogacar, the UAE Team Emirates leader had emphatically destroyed all hope for his rivals.

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