Pogacar closes in on Tour de France victory, Carapaz wins Queen stage

Tadej Pogacar all but sealed a record-equalling fifth Tour de France title on Saturday as Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz won the 20th stage on Alpe d'Huez.

With Sunday's 21st and final stage of the 113th edition of the Tour likely to be the usual procession around Paris, Pogacar will need only to cross the finish line to secure a fifth Tour title in seven years.

The 27-year-old Slovenian will join cycling greats Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as the only riders to have won the sport's greatest race five times.

But Pogacar is the youngest to have done so.
He crossed the finishing line on Saturday in fourth, arm-in-arm with team-mate Isaac Del Toro, who had done enough to ensure third place overall and victory in the best young rider's white jersey category ahead of French teenage ace Paul Seixas.

Pogacar even had the luxury of letting Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel, who finished second in the stage ahead of American Sepp Kuss in third, snare back around 40 seconds in the overall standings.

Pogacar leads by 6min 26sec going into Sunday's finale, with 22-year-old Del Toro third at 9:42.

Carapaz won his second stage in three days and also secured the King of the Mountains polkadot jersey.

But it was agony for Kuss, who was leading the Ecuadorian by around 15-20 seconds before crashing twice in the final 7km.

The second time, he was only saved from a fatal fall into a ravine by safety netting on the outside of a tight bend on a cliff-hugging mountain pass.

Kuss battled gamely to the end but was even passed by Evenepoel as Carapaz won the brutal 170.9km Queen stage of the race, which included four monstrous climbs.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)