'What's all this about?' – Tadej Pogacar gives Jonas Vingegaard a fright with joke attack at Tour de France

Updated 24/07/2022 at 18:43 GMT

Tadej Pogacar may have relinquished the yellow jersey at the 2022 Tour de France, but he refused to give up before handling defeat with great humour. Pogacar’s latest party trick saw him give Jonas Vingegaard a scare with a cheeky attack on Stage 21 as he and Wout van Aert raced clear, prompting the Danish GC leader to make a sharp burst to close the gap. It was all fun and games, however.

'What's all this about?' - Pogacar launches joke attack on Stage 21

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) gave Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) a fright on the final stage at the Tour de France with an attack from the gun.

Tradition dictates that the yellow jersey is not attacked on the run-around Paris, with the day instead a party procession before the sprinters race for glory on the Champs-Elysees.

Despite this, Pogacar decided to have a bit of fun on Stage 21.

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The Slovenian followed a burst from Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), who was giving the green jersey a whirl for the spectators, before moving to the front and cheekily driving on the pace.

“What’s all this about?” Sean Kelly wondered aloud on Eurosport commentary.

Pogacar and Van Aert shared a smile as Vingegaard raced to latch back on with a burst of his own.

“We can see here, just a little bit of playing about,” added Kelly.

“They cannot continue on here surely, but at this Tour de France you just never know what is going to happen. We have seen so many strange things happen all through the race.”

The pace soon settled down at the front as the peloton saluted the heroics of Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma throughout the three weeks, although he could resist another cheeky attack with 6km remaining as he attempted to time trial his way towards the finish.

Vingegaard and Pogacar have lit up a thrilling race in France, most recently in the Pyrenees when the Dane slowed down to allow his rival to catch up after a crash.

‘Wow’ – Vingegaard allows Pogacar to catch up after crash in ‘incredible’ gesture

An astonishing passage on Stage 18 saw Pogacar go for broke on the final descent in the knowledge he had to overturn a big deficit on the final day in the mountains.

The Slovenian quickly forced a mistake from his rival as Vingegaard swerved wildly out of a corner – only avoiding a nasty crash by unclipping his left shoe and veering dangerously across the road.

But the drama was far from over. The Dane shrugged off the wobble to quickly latch back onto Pogacar, who then overcooked a corner and slid out on the gravel on the outside of the road.

As Pogacar clambered out of a shallow ditch, Vingegaard disappeared down the road. But in a remarkable twist, Vingegaard decided to coast down the mountain and wait for the man whose aggressive riding had almost unseated him just moments earlier.

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Stream the Tour de France live and on-demand on discovery+. You can also watch all the action live on eurosport.co.uk.

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