Tadej Pogacar dealt another hard blow to his rivals, conquering the mountain time trial to Peyragudes, which was 10.9 kilometers long with a maximum gradient of 13% in the final section.

For the Slovenian, this is his fourth victory in this Tour de France and certainly more will come, followed by the final victory in Paris.

"Today's stage was a big question mark from the beginning for us," the world champion said after crossing the finish line. "I already had some doubts in December, and today I wanted everything to be perfect, and the team gave their maximum in the final moments to have me at the top."

The Slovenian started last with the yellow jersey, as he is the leader of the general classification, and this color will most likely accompany him to Paris when he can claim his fourth Tour de France victory. "I started the day well, had an easy morning and then good preparation. I was really focused because I aimed to give my maximum from start to finish and was only thinking about pushing the pedals as hard as possible. This is what we had decided with the team. In the end, I almost lost my mind, but when I saw the timer at the top as I passed, it gave me an extra boost because I understood I would win." For Pogacar, this is his fourth victory, and each time the success has come with significant margins.

Today at the Peyragudes finish line, he ended with a 36" advantage over Vingegaard, who still had an excellent race, and 1'20" over Primoz Roglic, who finished third. The gap with Remco Evenepoel was particularly important, who completed his mountain time trial 2'39" behind Pogacar.

The world champion knew exactly what to do during the race and chose to ride a standard bike instead of a time trial bike and didn't even want an earpiece to stay in contact with his team car.

"The bike choice was the most important decision to make. Which bike to use today? Obviously, we race on road bikes for most of the year, about 99% of the time, so in the end we did some calculations. If you can't push as hard on the time trial bike as on a regular bike, then it's better to change. If I can't push as hard with a time trial bike as with a road bike, then the time will be more or less the same, and it makes sense to use the bike you're most comfortable with. I decided to feel more at ease, in the way I've raced the last stages. In the end, it worked well for me. The gaps are excellent, very interesting, and this means it worked."

The gaps were significant, and after this mountain time trial, there were important changes in the general classification.

Vingegaard remains in second place with a gap of 4'07", while Remco now has a delay of 7'24" and risks dropping from the third step of the podium, as Lipowitz is just 6 seconds behind.

"I didn't pay attention to the first intermediate time and the gaps. Today I decided to start without radio, so I relied only on the times I saw on the boards. When I saw my name in green, it was positive and motivating. At the checkpoints, I saw that at the first passage I was already five seconds or something like that, and this motivated me. Then the second was a bit longer, and I understood that the pace was good and that I was doing a good time trial. The tactic was to go all out from the beginning."

The world champion decided to race based solely on his own feelings, and this worked well because his victory was truly incredible.

"In the end, I almost made it. My intention was not to run out of energy. But maybe in the last 3 kilometers, I was tired, especially between the second and third. I took a deep breath, relaxed a bit, and simply reduced the power a little. I knew the last climb would be super steep, and I wanted to reach the last part, the most difficult one, with a good margin, and I succeeded."