Tadej Pogacar wins third stage of Tour de France to take yellow jersey from Vingegaard

Reigning champion Tadej Pogacar won the third stage of the Tour de France on Monday to snatch the leader’s yellow jersey from rival Jonas Vingegaard.

The world champion and Vingegaard are dead level on time but Pogacar took over the race lead by virtue of his better finishing positions in the opening three stages.

The Slovenian finished two seconds ahead of the Dane and also earned four more bonus seconds than Vingegaard to wipe out his six-second deficit from the start of the day.

Former Giro d’Italia winner Richard Carapaz came past French teenage prodigy Paul Seixas to take third in the same time as Vingegaard at the end of a 196km stage which started in Granollers, Spain and finished in Les Angles in the French Pyrenees.

Despite a plea from organisers for fans to stay away because of raging wildfires just 70 kilometres away from the finish, there were plenty of people by the side of the roads in France.

Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel was eighth at 4sec and remains third overall but fell to 23sec off the lead.

Sunday’s stage two winner Isaac Del Toro is fourth overall at 24sec after finishing eighth, with Spaniard Juan Ayuso (27sec) and Seixas (48sec) rounding out the top six.

After Pogacar let his UAE Team Emirates team-mate Del Toro take the victory on Sunday’s finish on the Montjuic hill in Barcelona, this time it was the Mexican who led out the Slovenian for a decisive sprint to the line.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)