For Tadej Pogacar, the third place on the Grand Colombier feels like a victory, “a victory in the battle for the yellow jersey” as he says.
The Slovenian waited a long time on the final climb to place an attack and managed to crack Jonas Vingegaard a bit in the last hundreds of meters of stage 13. The yellow jersey wearer had to yield four seconds to Pogacar, who also grabbed four bonus seconds.
“In the end, it was a successful day for us. We took a couple of seconds back. It was a good day for us,” Pogacar said. “Even if it was not a victory, it was a victory in the battle for yellow a little bit, so yeah, we can take for sure big confidence from today.”
“It’s not necessarily mental, it’s more about the legs,” UAE Team Emirates sports manager Matxin Joxean Fernandez said.
“Cycling is really simple: you don’t speak with the declarations or the interviews, you speak with the legs. Tadej was stronger today in what was the perfect area for him, the last half kilometre before the finish. He’s more of a puncher and was able to pick four seconds plus another four in bonuses. So eight seconds less.”
“This weekend is really complicated: it’s the Alps, pure Alps. These are two important days coming up, but in the last three mountain stages, Tadej has been taking seconds,” Fernandez said.
