Gavarnie-Gèdre (France) (AFP) - Reigning champion Tadej Pogacar stamped his authority on the Tour de France on Thursday, winning the mountainous sixth stage and reclaiming the race leader’s yellow jersey.

Pogacar now leads by 2min 42sec from his main rival Jonas Vingegaard, who finished second on the 186km Pyrenean stage from Pau to Gavarnie-Gedre to move up to second overall.

“Today I woke up at seven in the morning already and my mind was going crazy so I was really really excited for today,” said Pogacar, who broke the record for the fastest time up the Tourmalet on the way to his 23rd Tour stage victory.

“All the guys (his team-mates) were really hyped so I knew it would be a good day.

“We just committed, we were going like nothing to lose. If we explode, they explode but in the end we succeeded and I’m super proud.”

Pogacar’s team-mate Isaac Del Toro beat Remco Evenepoel in the sprint for third to leapfrog the Olympic champion in the standings for third overall at 3:27.

Norwegian Torstein Traeen had started the day in yellow but he lost contact with the lead group before the halfway point of the punishing Tourmalet climb with around 50 kilometres still to ride, and from then on it was clear that his grip on the jersey was gone.

To make matters worse he crashed badly on the descent – his second spill in as many days – and finished half an hour down.

Pogacar’s UAE Emirates-XRG team ramped up the pace on the two Pyrenean behemoths, the Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet, on another scorching day in southwestern France where temperatures agin hit 40C.

The world champion attacked about 4km from the summit of the Tourmalet and he quickly gapped his rivals.

At the summit, Pogacar led Vingegaard by 30 seconds with Paul Seixas, Florian Lipowitz and Del Toro another minute behind.

Other contenders Evenepoel and Juan Ayuso were in a small group a further 20sec back.

- ‘Fight not over’ -

On the descent and then the final long but gentle climb to the finish, Pogacar gradually extended his lead, all but suffocating any hope of his rivals challenging him for the overall victory this year.

Vingegaard battled to limit his losses while behind him the two chasing groups merged but failed to cooperate effectively.

“It was a very tough day, not the day I wanted obviously, but that’s how it is sometimes,” said Vingegaard.

“They put a big attack in the Tourmalet and I couldn’t follow, I had to set my own pace.

“Over the top I wasn’t that far but a downhill like this isn’t really suited for me.”

But Vingegaard, a two-time Tour winner, insisted he had not lost hope.

“I still believe in myself. My legs will get better throughout the race, the fight is not over.”

After a rapid start and a relentless battle to make it into the day’s breakaway, Australian Ben O’Connor got away on his own with a little more than 100km to ride as French President Emmanuel Macron watched on from one of the offical cars following the race.

But his lone foray did not last long before UAE reeled him in.

On the Col d’Aspin, the second-most used climb at the Tour, their pace proved too much for Frenchman Alex Baudin, who started the day in the King of the Mountains jersey – it would finish the day on Pogacar’s shoulders.

Then American Sean Quinn and Czech Mathias Vacek, who began the day second and third in the standings, were also dropped, but Traeen hung in for the time being.

The 17km-long and steeper Tourmalet, the most used climb in the Tour which takes riders to more than 2,100 metres above sea level, Traeen was the next lose touch.

It was the first of the Tour’s toughest hors-category climbs and Pogacar’s team was doing what they do best: driving hard and whittling down the number of riders able to keep up.

It was only a matter of time before Pogacar attacked, and when he did, it was devastating.