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1 month ago
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Tadej Pogacar conquered his demons on the Col de la Loze to stretch his advantage in yellow as Ben O’Connor won stage 18 of the Tour de France in a hailstorm. On the mountain where Pogacar famously cracked in 2023 as Jonas Vingegaard rode away to his second Tour crown, Pogacar was the one gaining time two years later as a late dig at the summit saw him add 11sec to an overall lead that now stands at 4min 26sec over Vingegaard.
Oscar Onley, the 22-year-old Scot, hung with the two main favourites until the last 500m of this brutal 171.5km stage from Vif, which took in three hors catègorie climbs, gaining 39sec on Florian Lipowitz to move to within 22sec of the podium with one mountain stage left.
Lizzie Deignan retires
ShowLizzie Deignan has announced her immediate retirement from professional cycling after sharing news that she and husband, Phil, are expecting their third child. The 36-year-old former world champion had previously said 2025 would be her final season but has now called time on a career in which she recorded 43 professional wins, among them victories at Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and the Women’s Tour. Deignan took the world title in 2015, a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2014 and Olympic silver at the London Games in 2012.
Deignan took a career break in 2018 for the birth of her daughter, Orla, returning to win a second Women's Tour title in 2019 before her victories at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and La Course by Le Tour de France followed in 2020, and a brilliant solo win in the first Paris-Roubaix Femmes came in 2021. A second career break came in 2022 for the birth of her son, Shea.
Deignan's last race was the Copenhagen Sprint last month, which came a couple of weeks after she competed in the Tour of Britain Women for the last time. Speaking before that race, Deignan said she was proud to have been part of an era of unprecedented growth in women's cycling. She said part of what had kept her racing on was the growth of new races that she wanted to be part of, having not had those opportunities earlier in her career.
"I think if I had retired any earlier than now I would have had regrets, definitely, sitting at home watching all these opportunities unfold," Deignan said. "I can be really proud and pleased with the last five, six years of my career where I've got to feel truly like a professional, to be respected and to have opportunities equal to the men." PA Media
Stage honours belonged to O’Connor, who attacked on the valley road between the Col de la Madeleine and the final climb, leaving Einer Rubio behind 16km from the summit of this 26km long climb with double-digit gradients and hail awaiting the riders on the narrow bike path to the summit.
The Australian came to this Tour targeting the general classification but saw those hopes dashed by injuries sustained in a stage-one crash, and has had to recalibrate his ambitions to realise his second career Tour stage win, and first since 2021.
The penultimate mountain stage of this Tour was another opportunity for Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease A Bike team to try to isolate Pogacar, and they made their first big moves on the Madeleine. Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG lieutenants fell away but recovered before the climb up through Courcheval.
Vingegaard tried a late attack but it was Pogacar who came over the top to edge closer to a fourth career Tour crown. “Today was brutal,” Vingegaard said. “Five hours in the saddle. I’m not sure I’ve ever done such a hard stage in the Tour. I felt good, we had big plans, you could see that. We tried to go early and we did but unfortunately we could not gain any time. The team were amazing. I want to thank my teammates. I think we were pretty equal, [Pogacar] took a few seconds in the end but the Tour is not over.”
Jeremy Whittle’s report will follow shortly
