Mads Pedersen pulled away from the lead to win stage four of the Tour de France as defending champion Tadej Pogačar lost the yellow jersey and dropped to fourth place.
Dane Pedersen timed his run to perfection at the end of the 181.9km stage as temperatures reached 40°C in the south of France.
Uno-X Mobility rider Thorstein Train became the new race leader, finishing eighth on the stage, almost 13 minutes ahead of the peloton.
Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek teammate Quinn Simmons was second on the track as the route ran from Carcassonne to Foix, with Movistar’s Raul Garcia Pierna third.
Four-time champion Pogacar, who lost the yellow jersey in just one day for the third year in a row, was 33rd on the stage and seven minutes 53 seconds behind the new leader.
Racers are placing blocks of ice on top of their peaks as they battle the intense heat that has hit southern Europe this week.
As an experiment, the pack was allowed to carry bags of ice and water instead of individual bottles.
Train – the third Norwegian to wear yellow – was treated for cancer in 2022.external
He is not considered a top contender for the overall Tour title, but he was emotional on the podium.
“It’s kind of hard for me to understand how big this is, but you can see on my old coach’s faces how special it is,” Train said.
“You don’t really understand what’s going on, maybe in a couple of days it will sink in, but for now I’ll just have to enjoy it.
“I saw the guys from my team from the stands, you can see how happy they are, it’s always emotional.”
Pedersen said everyone on his team helped him keep his cool.
“We just have to live with the heat and do our best to cool down,” he said.
“Fortunately, the cars in the breakaway are closer to us than in the group, which makes the task easier.
“When we talk about team effort, we’re not just talking about the racers – there are a lot of people from our team on the side of the road waiting to give us bottles and ice outlets to help us beat the heat.”
Stage five on Wednesday is a mostly flat route suitable for sprinters, before the race reaches the high Pyrenees mountains on Thursday.