Tadei Pogachar admitted that his chances of winning the 2022 Tour de France were gone, and with sportsmanship after Jonas Vingegaard crashed, ambushed him, and then dropped him on the final climb to Autacam to extend his overall lead. He praised Jonas Vingegaard.

Pogachar is now 3:26 ahead of Vingegaard, with only Friday's flat stage to Cahors and Saturday's 40.7 km time trial remaining before Sunday's final stage in Paris.

He admitted that his third straight Tour de France victory was definitely gone.

"Yeah. Yes," he admitted in the mixed zone after the stage, after congratulating Vingegaard in person and wearing the white jersey of the other best young rider on the podium.

"The Tour is more or less set. I congratulated Jonas on today and on the Tour. I think he won."

"We still have a stage to win and I'll give it my all until Paris in three days."

Pogachar tried several times to attack Vingegaard on the Col de Spandel climb, but could not get rid of him.

He then went off the road on a downhill curve and lost control of his bike in deep gravel. He suffered a hole in his shorts and road rash, but he did not give up.

Eventually, he was dropped on the climb to the finish by the Dane and his incredible teammate Wout Van Art, who had been in the lead on the day's attack up to Hautacam.

"I gave it my all today. I wasn't thinking about the stage win. [I gave it my all on the second-to-last climb, crashed on the downhill, and gave it my all on the last climb. I think I did everything I could and this result is something to be proud of."

Pogachar admitted that the crash was his fault, but downplayed its impact on the race.

When asked about the impact on the race, he said, "I don't know.

"Certainly it's not nice to crash, but I was pushing and I crashed. It was my fault. But Jonas was really strong."

"There is no better way to lose the Tour de France. I gave it my all today, thinking about GC. I want to finish the race with no regrets."

Pogachar also downplayed the loss of several key teammates last week due to COVID-19 and injuries.

"Jonas is the strongest and even with eight teammates it would have been hard to beat him, but maybe we had a chance to attack more in the last week," Pogachar concluded with little regret and great fair play.