Tour de France: Pogacar still in yellow, Evenepoel closes gap after stage 16 time trial

Tadej Pogacar maintained his lead in the Tour de France, holding onto the yellow jersey after Tuesday's 16th stage time trial. However, the Slovenian rider ceded valuable time to his closest competitor, Remco Evenepoel, who delivered a dominant performance in the race against the clock.

Evenepoel, riding for Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, was the standout performer of the day, finishing the time trial between Évian-les-Bains and Thonon-les-Bains 28 seconds faster than Pogacar. This victory significantly narrows the gap in the general classification, with Evenepoel now trailing Pogacar by 4 minutes and 32 seconds. The Belgian rider's strong showing comes after Jonas Vingegaard's withdrawal from the race on Sunday.

Third-placed Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek also made a notable gain during the stage. Meanwhile, the top 10 saw a shake-up due to the abandonment of Florian Lipowitz, a co-leader for the Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe team. Lipowitz crashed heavily in the latter part of the time trial and was forced to withdraw from the race, having been third overall in last year's Tour.

Other riders also experienced mixed fortunes. Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious lost 2 minutes and 50 seconds to Evenepoel, affecting his position in the standings. The new general classification sees Pogacar leading, followed by Evenepoel, with Isaac Del Toro of UAE Emirates-XRG in third place, ahead of Paul Seixas and Juan Ayuso.