Wout Poels wins maiden Grand Tour stage as Jonas Vingegaard fends off Tadej Pogacar to maintain GC lead

Wout Poels (Team Bahrain Victorious) won Stage 15 of the Tour de France with Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) crossing the line in tandem as the Dane sustained his 10-second lead in the GC.

After a relative general classification stalemate on Stage 14 of the Tour, much was expected on Stage 15’s summit finish up Mount-Blanc, but, as with yesterday, drama, in the form of a crash, came early.

A fan appeared to clip Sepp Kuss with 128km to go. No rider had to abandon, but fellow Jumbo Visma rider Nathan van Hooydonck was among the most badly affected by the incident. The winner would ultimately come from the 36-man escape which was allowed by the leader's team to establish a sizeable advantage after the crash.

The second big Alpine stage of this year's Tour began in perfectly cool racing conditions in Les Gets, a ski resort within in the Hautes Savoie department of Les Portes du Soleil. The summit finish and so little time separating the top two made a showdown between them a near certainty. The 179k course consisting of nothing but ups and downs, beginning with the former, pointed towards a big breakaway day.

And so it proved, although the escape took some time to form, only coming together in dribs and drabs, beginning with an accidental solo slide away from Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) over the first 40km. It also might not have had the composition or the success that it ultimately did were it not for the incident that occurred at the front of the peloton, after just over an hour of racing, at Aviernoz. The race had not settled by that point, with the riders out front barely meeting the definition of a group, most of whom had much less than a minute over the bunch.

Following the crash, Jumbo Visma, who had been controlling the race, took the decision to knock off the chase, allow their part of the race to calm, and their own riders to receive medical treatment.

The breakaway was subsequently able to unify and work towards the common goal of stage wins, and less common one of scooping up mountains points on the plentiful categorised climbs. Two riders, Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) were reluctant to join the larger group, and only joined it after the descent of the first climb, the category 1 Col de Forclaz. That had implications for two riders in the larger chase, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) and Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) who had to settle for minor mountains points in their battle for the polka dot jersey.

Four points was all that incumbent Powless would have to show for a hard day, while Ciccone would draw level on the Col de la Croix Fry. That put him in the virtual lead by virtue of superior placings on the higher category climbs.

Ciccone would take no more points from the day, as Marc Soler (UAE Emirates) attacked off the front on the category 3 Col des Aravis. The move had the makings of a proxy war, as Wout van Aert soon followed, with Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) and Krists Neilands (Israel PremierTech) quick to leap on the Belgian's own wheel.

Catastrophe denied the 28 year-old his best ever Tour de France result, as an ill-timed bottle pass from a neutral service motorbike caused the Latvian to be clipped and send him to the deck. He was able to continue, however, and managed a respectable 35th place finish.

As the race edged towards its conclusion, it looked like it was left to Poels, Van Aert and Soler to fight it out for the stage win. Strong descending from Poels first distanced the Spanish rider on the descent while a far superior power-to-weight ratio allowed the Dutchman to accelerate away from Van Aert early on the steep slopes of the second category Cote des Amerands.

Poels crested, and he held on to solo to the win at Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc by a full two minutes over Van Aert. Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies) ended up claiming third.

The yellow jersey group trailed the leader by seven minutes as Poels crossed the line, and UAE Team Emirates moved to the front of that group, Rafal Majka setting a painful pace as they embarked on the steeper section of the two climbs that was really one in two halves.

Five kilometres from the line and it looked to be Adam Yates who had the best legs of anyone. He ensured Vingegaard's team-mates Sepp Kuss and Wilco Kelderman could make no further contribution to the stage.

With just two kilometres on the stage remaining Pogacar himself lost his team-mate's wheel giving, at least, the impression that he was struggling. Vingegaard was persuaded to come past, as 3rd place Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) rejoined their group.

Pogacar did not drop back any further however, and at a kilometre to go launched an audacious attack over the top of the yellow jersey. Vingegaard was alert to it, though, closing that down, as well as another, and ensuring they crossed the line together.

Thus, Vingegaard holds a 10-second advantage going into Monday’s rest day.

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