Tadej Pogacar wins stunning stage 6 sprint and takes Yellow

Tadej Pogacar sprinted away at the finish to win stage six and move into the overall lead at the Tour de France. Wout van Aert spent most of the day in the breakaway!

The defending champion attacked at the top of the short climb into Longwy, pulling away from the peloton to finish ahead of Michael Matthews and David Gaudu.

With a time bonus applied, Slovenian Pogacar has a four-second lead overall from Neilson Powless.

The longest stage of the Tour was chaotic affair, with Wout van Aert in the yellow jersey joining the day's breakaway.

After 80km of racing, several attacks and average speeds of 60 kph, the Yellow jersey went away with  Quinn Simmons (Trek - Segafredo) and Jakob Fuglsang (Israel - Premier Tech). 

They built up a lead of 4 minutes, before the peloton put their foot on the gas to reel them back. 

Fuglsang dropped back to the peloton when the gap came down to two minutes, Simmons followed and race leader Wout van Aert resisted and pushed on until he was finally caught with 10 kilometers to go and them was dropped by the peloton, sealing his his last day in the Yellow jersey.

In the penultimate climb before the finish, Alexis Vuillermoz attacked, Tadej Pogacar countered with little effect.

Vuillermoz was reeled in on the final climb to the finish line, Primoz Roglic attacked first, however Tadej Pogacar easily managed to outsprint everyone with Michael Matthews in second and David Gaudu in third.

“It feels like the first time I had it,” Pogacar said while pulling at the yellow jersey he last wore on the 2021 final podium beneath the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

“It was a real battle to get it again,” he said.

“I believe in myself, the cobbles went well yesterday, today too, but tomorrow will be the biggest test of the Tour so far,” Pogacar warned of Friday’s climb to the storied Planche des belles Filles mountain summit. 

VIDEO: 2022 Tour de France Stage 6 Highlights

2022 Tour de France Stage 6 Top 10

1 SLO Tadej Pogacar UAE Team Emirates 04:27:13
2 AUS Michael Matthews Team BikeExchange-Jayco + 00
3 FRA David Gaudu Groupama-FDJ + 00
4 GBR Tom Pidcock INEOS Grenadiers + 00
5 COL Nairo Quintana Team Arkéa-Samsic + 00
6 BEL Dylan Teuns Bahrain Victorious + 00
7 DEN Jonas Vingegaard Jumbo-Visma + 00
8 COL Daniel Martinez INEOS Grenadiers + 00
9 SLO Primoz Roglic Jumbo-Visma + 00
10 FRA Romain Bardet Team DSM + 00

2022 Tour de France GC after stage 6

01 SLO Tadej Pogacar UAE Team Emirates 20:44:44
02 USA Neilson Powless EF Education-EasyPost + 04
03 DEN Jonas Vingegaard Jumbo-Visma + 31
04 GBR Adam Yates INEOS Grenadiers + 39
05 GBR Tom Pidcock INEOS Grenadiers + 40
06 GBR Geraint Thomas INEOS Grenadiers + 46
07 RUS Aleksandr Vlasov BORA-hansgrohe + 52
08 COL Daniel Martinez INEOS Grenadiers + 01:00
09 FRA Romain Bardet Team DSM + 01:01
10 FRA David Gaudu Groupama-FDJ + 01:02