Tour de France 2024: Kévin Vauquelin creates a surprise and wins the second stage, Tadej Pogacar already takes the yellow jersey

Kévin Vauquelin a signé le plus beau succès de sa carrière. MAXPPP – KIM LUDBROOK

The Frenchman Kévin Vauquelin won the second stage of the Tour de France alone on Sunday in Bologna where the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar has already seized the yellow jersey, at the same time as his great rival Jonas Vingegaard.

The 23-year-old from Normandy offered his Arkéa-B&B Hotels team its first victory in the Grande Boucle after letting go of his breakaway companions on the second ascent of the terrible coast of San Luca. This is the second French victory in two days after that of Romain Bardet.

The last time that two first stages of the Tour were won by a Frenchman dates back to 1968 when Charly Grosskost achieved the double. Vauquelin, who is competing in his first Tour at the age of 23, is one of the great hopes of French cycling and has just become French vice-champion in the time trial.

After having made the difference in San Luca, and while there were still around ten riders to go, he raced towards victory in the descent towards Bologna, while the favorites ;#39;explained about three minutes behind. "It's completely crazy, yesterday I was at the bottom of the bucket. We had a perfect day", he reacted.

As expected, Tadej Pogacar attacked at the end of the San Luca coast. And, like last year, the only one able to follow him was Jonas Vingegaard, who is only making his return to competition and who was enormously reassured on Sunday.

Pogacar takes the yellow jersey from Romain Bardet, winner of the first stage, thanks to his fourth place on Saturday since he is in the general classification at the same time as Vingegaard, the Belgian Remco Evenepoel and the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz. The latter two returned on the descent towards Bologna.