If Tadej Pogačar was already getting bored with answering questions about his unflinching dominance of this year’s Tour de France, he may finally be about to get some respite after losing the yellow jersey to Uno-X Mobility’s Torstein Træen in Foix.
Following his win in Les Angles, which propelled him into the race lead on countback, Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates squad were criticised by some members of the media, including rider-turned-pundit Thomas Voeckler, for their commitment to stifling the breakaway and targeting multiple stage wins.
However, on Tuesday’s lumpy route between Carcassonne and Foix, UAE Team Emirates appeared to acquiesce to the demands of the press, letting a 34-strong group of escapees disappear up the road and gain over 12 minutes.
Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen won the stage, ahead of teammate Quinn Simmons, after the squad dominated the break, while 30-year-old Norwegian Træen catapulted into the yellow jersey, 28 seconds clear of EF Education-EasyPost’s Sean Quinn.
Pogačar now sits in fourth place on GC, 7.53 down on Træen, whose Uno-X team will be keen to defend the race lead in the remaining Pyrenean stage and possibly into the Alps, which won’t come until the Tour’s third weekend.
And speaking to a small group of reporters, including road.cc, while warming down outside his team bus, the world champion appeared happy with the how today’s stage to Foix panned out – despite him suffering from a headache in the heat early in the day.
“We knew if Trek, or such a team, go in breakaway, that will be probably be a breakaway day and Trek did a super good job,” Pogačar said.
“They had three riders in the front and we kept it cool, calm, and we arrived to finish, not spending a crazy amount of energy.
“Obviously, when you need to pull because of the jersey, you spend a bit [of energy], but I think Nils [Politt], Florian [Vermeersch], and Tim [Wellens] were super good today, dividing the work, and I think we did a good job, and a good day overall.
“We kept it cool in this heat. It was really when we started, it was like I had full a headache and I was thinking ‘this is going to be a long day’, but then we kept showering each other with water, and it was okay.”
Asked whether having Træen in the yellow jersey, and thus Uno-X on the front, will benefit him, Pogačar said: “I mean, obviously the goal is to take back the yellow jersey, but yeah, you never know.
“They’re really good, and now it’s quite a big gap, so we will see. We will fight, but I think they can keep the yellow jersey in the team for a long time.”
While he’s not sure how long he’ll be without yellow, there is one consequence of not leading the Tour de France Pogačar (who asked us to “keep a distance” as he warmed down) is happy to be without for the time being: his post-stage media and race duties.
“You cannot measure this, no, but some days there probably is a lot of stress with media. Some days it’s easy to do it. It just depends on the day and it’s hard to tell.
“I’ve been a lot of times back in the podium and a lot of times doing all the extra work and today will be one hour and a half less obligations.
“So it definitely helps with the recovery, but I think now I’m pretty used to also doing all the podium stuff and we’ve got good protocol and I have good help around me. Good people that help me to stay cool and calm, and to recover as best as possible, even when we are doing the podium.”
