O'Connor climbs to 'brutal' Alpine stage win as Pogacar tightens grip on Tour

COL DE LA LOZE

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Ben O'Connor won stage 18 of the Tour de France with a world-class climb over three Alpine mountains on Thursday as defending champion Tadej Pogacar tightened his grip on the yellow jersey.

Australian O'Connor, 29, took off alone 15km from the finish and navigated the mountain mist to win 1min 45sec ahead of Pogacar atop the Col de la Loze.

Vingegaard crossed the line in third place, nine seconds behind the Slovenian.

"It was brutal, I've never lived anything so hard. The team did well and we had a good plan, but I couldn't take any time off Tadej," said Vingegaard.

Pogacar now holds a 4min 26sec lead over the Dane in the general classification with three days to go before the finish in Paris.

Starting the day with a deficit of 4min 15sec, Vingegaard had attacked a massive 71km out.

"Our tactics fell apart when they attacked so soon," said Pogacar explaining he simply tracked his rival on instinct.

Pogacar eventually dropped the Dane near the finish line to gain another 11sec on the Team Visma rider who won the 2022 and 2023 Tour de France.