Paris: Tadej Pogacar continued his charge towards an anticipated fourth Tour de France title when he stretched his overall lead to over four minutes by winning the 13th stage, a lung-busting 10.9-km uphill time trial on Friday.

According to France24.com, the defending champion dominated the eight-kilometre climb at 7.9 percent to clock 23 minutes and beat Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard by a massive 36 seconds. This performance came a day after leaving his closest rival shattered in the first major mountain stage in the Pyrenees.

Fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic took third place, finishing 1:40 off the pace, while Belgian Remco Evenepoel managed to cling to third place overall by a narrow margin. Evenepoel's effort was seen as disappointing as he finished 2:39 behind Pogacar.