Wellens enjoys stage win as Pogacar retains yellow jersey
Paris
Tim Wellens had time to high-five fans inside the final kilometre as he soloed to victory on stage 15 of the Tour de France into Carcassonne with his team-mate Tadej Pogacar retaining the yellow jersey.
Wellens, 34, completed his set of Grand Tour stage victories, attacking from a breakaway on the 169km stage from Muret and quickly opening a sizeable gap before the long downhill run into the medieval city where his margin of victory over Victor Campenaerts was 88 seconds.
In the confusion of another frantic day of racing on Sunday, Julian Alaphilippe celebrated as though he had won the stage when he edged a three-way sprint for third, having apparently been without a working radio after hurting his shoulder in an earlier crash.
Instead, it was a fifth stage victory of this Tour for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with Pogacar having taken the other four on his way to building an advantage of four minutes 13 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard going into Monday's rest day.
There was no change at the top of the general classification, with the main favourites finishing some six minutes after Wellens took the win. Florian Lupowitz remains third, just shy of eight minutes off yellow and one minute 25 seconds ahead of 22-year-old Scot Oscar Onley.
'It was a very special victory,' Wellens said. 'Everybody wants to ride the Tour de France but not many get to win at the Tour de France so it's very beautiful...'
It was Wellens' first Grand Tour stage win since he won two stages of the 2020 Vuelta a Espana to add to his two Giro d'Italia stage victories.
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