JONAS VINGEGAARD crashed out of the Tour de France from second place overall yesterday as Remco Evenepoel won stage 15 ahead of race leader Tadej Pogacar atop Plateau de Solaison.

Two-time Tour champion Vingegaard, Pogacar’s principal rival for yellow, went down hard on a tight roundabout approaching the final climb, around 20km from the end of the 184km stage from Champagnole, and climbed into an ambulance with a suspected broken collarbone.

Vingegaard’s exit saw Evenepoel promoted to second overall and the Belgian responded by claiming his first career road stage win on the Tour – his two previous successes having come in time trials.

Vingegaard’s crash came after the Dane was controversially woken up at 2am for an unannounced anti-doping test, with the Giro d’Italia winner complaining about a loss of sleep in pre-stage interviews.

On the steep gradients to the finish Pogacar was trying to set up a second stage win for his team-mate Isaac del Toro.

But, on terrain not normally suited to him, Evenepoel stuck to his wheels and responded to both of Del Toro’s attacks inside the final kilometre to take the win just ahead of Pogacar as Del Toro faded.

“It’s amazing,” Evenepoel said. “I’m literally trembling from emotions. It’s been a hell of a day. It was pretty hard at the start. I was feeling really bad in the beginning but I got better.

“You have to understand I’m racing with the best rider ever. He was doing a hell of a climb to try to win the stage with Isaac. For me it’s a big step forward that I can follow this pace. It was a crazy hard pace…

“I get so many critics saying I cannot survive steep climbs and it feels amazing for myself and for everybody around me. It means a lot.”

Evenepoel sits five minutes adrift of Pogacar going into today’s rest day and then tomorrow’s time trial – a day he would already have been targeting.

Del Toro missed out on the stage but moved up to third, taking the best young rider’s jersey from French teenager Paul Seixas, 25 seconds further back in fourth.