Tadej Pogačar won stage three of the Tour de France to take the yellow jersey from Jonas Vingegaard in Les Angles.
Isaac del Toro paid back his team-mate for helping him win Sunday’s stage two as he led Pogačar up the short final climb, with the world champion waiting until the final 250 metres to attack.
Jonas Vingegaard followed but a small gap emerged – timed at two seconds on the line – enough for Pogačar to take the jersey from his rival as he claimed his 22nd career Tour stage win.
Pogačar and Vingegaard are level on time after three stages but Pogačar leads on countback in his pursuit of a record-equalling fifth Tour title and third in a row.
“It’s because of Isaac today that I got some extra power in the final,” said Pogačar, who had helped engineer Sunday’s win for his Mexican team-mate in Barcelona rather than take it himself.
“In the middle of the stage we decided it was possible to go for the stage win and I’m really happy we can start the Tour like this, it was an incredible finish today.
“If we can win like we did today and the team feels super good we have to take the opportunity.”
The 196-kilometre stage from Granollers, bringing the race through the Pyrenees from Spain into France, looked custom-designed for a breakaway.
But it took more than 70km for a sizeable group to get clear and they were never afforded a significant gap as Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad controlled the pace.
Alex Baudin, who started the day 67 seconds off yellow, did his best to hang on but had to console himself with taking control of the king of the mountains classification as he was caught with 10km left.
Britain’s Tom Pidcock was seen as a potential contender on such a stage but slipped back on the final climb, finishing 18 seconds down on Pogačar in 16th place.
There were smaller than usual crowds during the final 40 kilometres with fans having been urged to stay away as emergency services in the region dealt with wildfires that did not affect the route directly.
