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Tadej Pogacar won stage 15 of the Tour de France to slightly trim Primoz Roglic’s lead when defending champion Egan Bernal withdrew from contention.
Pogacar beat Roglic yellow jersey in a sprint to the line and is now 40 seconds behind his Slovenian compatriot.
Bernal suffered a slump on the last climb to the Grand Colombier and lost more than seven minutes to go from third to 13th overall.
Britain’s Adam Yates moved up to fifth place in the overall standings.
Roglic was expertly delivered to the finish after another supreme display from his Jumbo-Visma team, but Pogacar proved again that he will try to cut the deficit at every opportunity.
The 21-year-old UAE driver delivered a clean kick at the end for his second Tour stage victory and 10 bonus seconds, with Roglic second and Richie Porte third.
“Jumbo-Visma set a really high pace throughout the day and made it a very difficult stage, so I was looking forward to the sprint at the end and I’m very happy to win again,” said Pogacar.
“The plan is to win the Tour de France. Primoz Roglic seems unstoppable, but today Bernal failed and maybe one day I or Primoz will break, there are still many opportunities ahead.”
Pogacar, who lost more than a minute after being caught in the crosswinds in stage seven, will have to attack from further afield in the final week to check out Roglic, which will be difficult given the strength of Jumbo-Visma.
Belgian all-rounder Wout van Aert, who has won two sprints on this year’s Tour, led the group of favorites for the first 8km of the final 17.4km climb and set a pace so high that he dropped the winners of the Gran Tour Bernal and Nairo Quintana.
Former Giro d’Italia champion Tom Dumoulin then staggered in a Yates attack 6km to go and led the main group to the last kilometer before Roglic attacked.
Porte, Pogacar and Miguel Ángel López were the only drivers able to react before Pogacar prevailed in a repeat of the Slovenian double in the ninth stage.
But despite being beaten again, this was another great show from Roglic, who is confident that his team can control the rest of the race.
Yates also ran well to finish eighth and is now just 29 seconds off the podium entering the final week.
Jumbo’s strength was in stark contrast to Ineos Grenadiers, who have won seven of the last eight Tours as Team Sky and Team Ineos.
All of Bernal’s support drivers, except Michal Kwiatkowski and Jonathan Castroviejo, were eliminated early on before the Colombian, who came to the race still recovering from a back injury, also began to regress and lose time rapidly.
The 23-year-old is now eight minutes 25 seconds behind Roglic and Ineos has no backup option, with deputy leader Richard Carapaz more than 30 minutes behind.
While four-time Tour winner Chris Froome appears to be working to get back to his best form, Ineos’ decision not to select 2018 champion Geraint Thomas will again come under scrutiny.
The Welshman, who is now targeting this year’s Giro in October, is currently third overall ahead of the Tirreno-Adriatico final stage Monday.
In a frantic start to stage 15, Irishman Sam Bennett managed to prevent his green jersey rival Peter Sagan from climbing the road before beating him in the intermediate sprint to extend his lead in that competition to 45 points.
After a rest day on Monday, the race resumes with a 164km undulating route from La Tour-du-Pin to Villard-de-Lans on Tuesday.
Result of stage 15
1. Tadej Pogacar (Slo / UAE Team Emirates) 4 hours 34 minutes 13 seconds
2. Primoz Roglic (Slo / Jumbo-Visma) At the same time
3. Richie Porte (Aus / Trek-Segafredo) + 5 seconds
4. Miguel Angel Lopez (Col / Astana) + 8 seconds
5. Enric Mas (Spa / Movistar) + 15secs
6. Sepp Kuss (US / Jumbo-Visma) At the same time
7. Mikel Landa (Spa / Bahrain McLaren)
8. Adam Yates (GB / Mitchelton-Scott)
9. Rigoberto Uran (Col / EF Pro Cycling) + 18 seconds
10. Alejandro Valverde (Spa / Movistar) + 24secs
General classification after stage 15
1. Primoz Roglic (Slo / Jumbo-Visma) 65 hours 37 minutes 07 seconds
2. Tadej Pogacar (Slo / UAE Team Emirates) + 40 seconds
3. Rigoberto Uran (Col / EF Pro Cycling) + 1 minute 34 seconds
4. Miguel Angel Lopez (Col / Astana) + 1min 45secs
5. Adam Yates (GB / Mitchelton-Scott) + 2 minutes 03 seconds
6. Richie Porte (Aus / Trek-Segafredo) + 2 minutes 13 seconds
7. Mikel Landa (Spa / Bahrain McLaren) + 2mins 16secs
8. Enric Mas (Spa / Movistar) + 3min 15secs
9. Nairo Quintana (Col / Arkea-Samsic) + 5 minutes 08 seconds
10. Tom Dumoulin (Ned / Jumbo-Visma) + 5 minutes 12 seconds
