Tour de France: Primoz Roglic looses time in horrific day as Tadej Pogacar attacks cobbles and Simon Clarke takes stage win

The Tour de France was turnt on it's head today in the cobbles, and crashes and mechanicals saw several of the race's main favourites to win the race loose serious time. Israel - Premier Tech's Simon Clarke won the stage after winning the sprint from the breakaway survivors.

Early on in the day the breakaway set off with six riders. Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Magnus Cort Nielsen and Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies), Simon Clarke (Israel - Premier Tech) and Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels-KTM). The group rode a very high speed all day long, building a gap of four minutes that then started to come down very slowly.

The tension was high all day long and saw the peloton bunched up all afternoon. The first sectors saw a furious fight for positioning, however without any casualties in the sectors themselves. Wout van Aert crashed, the beginning of what would be a very bad day for Jumbo-Visma. He recovered position, however dropped back to help Jonas Vingegaard who had a mechanical and switched bike several times with 36 kilometers to go. It was a chaotic section as several riders of the Dutch team dropped back to help the Dane, and in the peloton Primoz Roglic crashed hard just a few kilometers later.

Several punctures and crashes took out some of the stage favourites, with several other GC riders between those who lost time due to mishaps that also found themselves chasing back. They had to chase back, as BORA and Arkéa drove the pace in the peloton, and of which Tadej Pogacar - despite having no teammates - attacked with 18 kilometers to go alongside Jasper Stuyven.

Five of the breakaway's riders had kept a gap of just below a minute though and went on to fight for the stage win. Four riders entered the final kilometer in front with Neilson Powless attacking early on. Edvald Boasson Hagen was forced to chase back and behind him Taco van der Hoorn was the first to launch the sprint. The Dutchman seemed to be heading for the win, but Simon Clarke managed to go through just before crossing the finish line.

Behind, Tadej Pogacar took serious time on Primoz Roglic who suffered from mishaps whilst Wout van Aert managed to retain the yellow jersey after reconnecting with the peloton in the final kilometers. Roglic lost 1:55 to the peloton alongside Alexey Lutsenko. Ben O'Connor and Louis Meintjes lost 3:08 minutes whilst Jack Haig abandoned the race.

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