Pogacar pips Van der Poel to Swiss Tour TT win / Photo: © AFP
Pogacar pips Van der Poel to Swiss Tour TT win
Tadej Pogacar extended his Tour of Switzerland lead after sensationally pipping his one-day classics rival Mathieu van der Poel by just three tenths of a second in Saturday's individual time-trial.
Starting last as the race leader, world champion Pogacar drilled his effort over the 23.7km route around Aarburg as hard as he could, right to the line, and it proved enough to deny Van der Poel a morale-boosting victory.
As for the overall picture at the mountainous Swiss tour, Pogacar gained more than a minute and a half on his nearest challenger, former Giro d'Italia winner Richard Carapaz, to extend his lead to 4min 22sec.
Czech Mathias Vacek moved up a place to third overall with an impressive fourth-placed finish on the day and now sits just five seconds behind Carapaz in the overall standings.
Young Italian Andrea Bagioli dropped a place in the overall standings to fourth at 4:46 after finishing 43rd in the race against the clock.
Stage five on Sunday takes the peloton across the same peak three times and finishes atop it a fourth, starting at Villars-sur-Ollon, they climb the Col de la Croix twice in full and twice partially over the 150.7-kilometre route.
(A.Laurent--LPdF)
