Wellens wins Tour de France 15th stage, teammate Pogačar maintains grip on yellow jersey

CARCASSONNE, France (AP) — Tim Wellens raced clear on the descent toward Carcassonne to win the 15th stage of the Tour de France on Sunday while three-time champion Tadej Pogačar tightened his hold on the yellow jersey.

Wellens, a teammate of Pogačar at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, was in a four-man leading group with Michael Storer, Quinn Simmons and Victor Campeanaerts as they climbed the 2.9 kilometer, 10.2% incline Pas du Sant.

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Carlos Rodriguez, Warren Barguil, Aleks Vlasov and Alexey Lutsenko were chasing, and Wellens waited for the trailing group to catch up before he attacked with 43.5 kilometers to go, knowing his rivals would find it hard to react with the downhill to come.

The Belgian rider finished 1 minute, 28 seconds ahead of Campeanaerts and 1:36 ahead of Julian Alaphilippe, Wout van Aert, and Axel Laurance.

Pogačar and his closest general classification rivals, Jonas Vingegard and Florian Lipowitz, finished in a large group 6:07 behind Wellens.

Pogačar maintained his overall lead of 4:13 over Vingegard and 7:53 over German rider Lipowitz.

The race finishes next weekend in Paris.

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