UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pogacar maintained his three-minute-plus overall lead in the Tour de France as Victor Campenaerts secured a perfectly-timed victory in the Alps on Thursday's Stage 18.
Campenaerts was in the leading breakaway trio with Michal Kwiatkowski and Matteo Vercher, with the Belgian biding his time behind the other two riders before exploding into a powerful sprint in the final 200 metres to take his first ever Tour stage win.
Pogacar rolled home in the yellow jersey 14 minutes down on the stage winner and there were no changes in the top 11 of the overall standings as the GC rivals came in unscathed.
The Slovenian remains three minutes and 11 seconds clear of Visma-Lease a Bike's Jonas Vingegaard with Remco Evenepoel of Soudal-Quick Step 5 mins and 9 secs behind Pogacar as they head into the race's final three stages – the last of which ends in Nice on Sunday.
Campenaerts, a former one-hour world record holder, wept at the finish line as he spoke with his wife by video link.
In many ways, Campenaerts shared the limelight on Thursday with the 20km-long artificial lake Serre-Poncon with turquoise blue waters that run off the Alps to 90m deep in spring.
Campenaerts, Kwiatkowski and Vercher broke away and surged ahead about 35km from the finish and the trio kept the pressure on as a group of five riders attempted to catch up.
But they managed to hold the chasing pack at bay with a comfortable pace up front until the final sprint where Campenaerts hung back while Kwiatkowski led, constantly looking over his shoulder.
Campenaerts eventually kicked into gear to overtake both riders who gave chase in vain as Vercher, who crashed earlier in the neutral zone at the start of the stage, finished second and Kwiatkowski third.
“As a real professional you have to ride the Tour de France, finish the Tour de France, but winning a stage in the Tour de France is everybody’s dream,” he said.
“I’ve been dreaming about this for a very long time. After the Classics, I had a very difficult time. I had a verbal agreement with the [Lotto Dstny] team about extending my contract. I got ignored for a long time and it was very difficult.
“I was at a long altitude [training] camp but my girlfriend was there, she supported me every day, [while] heavily pregnant.
“I was struggling to finish my training schedules but I changed my mind. I have a bright future now, still in cycling.
“I became a father and it was like, only blue skies. I started to feel very good on the bike and I came to this Tour de France with a super-motivated team, with a super good atmosphere in the team. This is just the sum of this atmosphere in the team and we’re going to celebrate tonight.
“The support I have from my girlfriend is incredible, she's always there for me. We spent nine weeks in the altitude camp, she gave birth to our son at the bottom of the climb in Granada. She is the hero in this story.”
The final three stages are all potential game-changers with Friday's run taking the peloton to 2800m altitude before a huge descent sure to provide an edge-of-the-seat experience for the armchair viewer.
Saturday is also a steep stage with two mountains and another downhill finale. But the final stage could shake up the standings even more with a 34km individual time trial from Monaco to Nice.
Stage 18 result
1. Victor Campenaerts (Bel/Lotto-Dstny) 4hrs 10mins 20secs
2. Matteo Vercher (Fra/TotalEnergies) Same time
3. Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol/Ineos Grenadiers)
4. Toms Skujins (Lat/Lidl-Trek) +22secs
5. Oier Lazkano (Spa/Movistar) Same time
General classification
1. Tadej Pogacar (Slo/UAE Team Emirates) 74hrs 45mins 27secs
2. Jonas Vingegaard (Den/Visma-Lease a Bike) +3mins 11secs
3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel/Soudal- Quick Step) +5:09
4. Joao Almeida (Por/UAE Team Emirates) +12:57
5. Mikel Landa (Spa/Soudal-Quick Step) +13:24
