NICE: Tadej Pogacar won for a fifth time on this year's Tour de France on Saturday, moving to the brink of a third title, with an "out of this world" performance ahead of defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel.
With just Sunday's concluding time trial to come, two-time champion Pogacar has a five minute 14-second lead over Vingegaard as he effectively made sure of becoming the first man in 26 years to capture the Giro d'Italia-Tour de France double in the same season.
"Tomorrow can still be dangerous so I will try and come safely into Nice," said Pogacar, who rode most of the stage aided by teammates, likely to conserve energy for the last day.
"I wanted to ride and finish with the team," he said, knowing he will finish alone Sunday.
The Slovenian won the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021 before his attack-minded tactics backfired as Vingegaard beat him into second place in 2022 and 2023.
"Five wins! If you had told me that before the Tour then I would not have believed you," said Pogacar. "It's out of this world, I'm super happy."
The day's action started in Nice and culminated on the tough Col de Couillole climb.
Evenepoel's Quick Step team set the tempo and attacked Vingegaard in an attempt to take second place overall.
Instead Evenepoel dropped around 53sec on the Dane, making it less likely the Belgian can claim second place after Sunday's time trial, where he is favourite for the stage win.
Vingegaard said he had not been targeting a win on Saturday's penultimate stage after admitting on Friday that his title hopes were over when Pogacar also pocketed the 19th stage.
"I was riding more to put more time into him (Evenepoel) rather than going for the stage today. He's the best time triallist in the world so you never know," said the 27-year-old Dane.
"I felt really bad yesterday, completely empty, so to bounce back like this is really nice."
Evenepoel virtually guaranteed third place overall and the white jersey as best young rider.
Olympic champion Richard Carapaz, regarded as the most combative rider on the 2024 Tour, will win the climb points jersey.
Carapaz came third Saturday, won a stage and even took the yellow jersey for a day early in the Tour.
Pogacar also claimed he never intended to win Saturday's stage.
"We were letting the breakaway go, we had (teammate) Marc Soler in the breakaway and gave him carte blanche."
Of the 3,498km on this 2024 Tour there remains just 34, a challenging run along the narrow, undulating corniche between the principality of Monaco, where many in the peloton live, and the French Riviera town of Nice.
The Tour traditionally ends with a parade into Paris with a sprint finish contested on the Champs Elysees.
However, due to the Olympics in the French capital, the Tour de France avoided the region altogether and instead ends with a new-look finale that may yet produce a surprise.
Veteran British sprinter Mark Cavendish established a stand alone 35 stage wins all time record on this edition, and finished safely Saturday, showing great respect for the race by climbing through the Alps while many other sprinters pulled out ahead of the onslaught. - AFP