All over bar the shouting: Pogacar finds new way to fuel his fire at the Tour

“It was an amazing atmosphere, even though there was some booing,” Pogačar said of his Bastille Day experience. “To all the guys that were booing, they give us more power.”

The Tour’s in-house interviewer Sébastien Piquet was never likely to follow up on a comment that ran contrary to the race’s corporate self-image, but Pogačar was asked to revisit it during his brief press conference for written media after the podium ceremony and mixed zone.

“For sure, I have haters now and haters gonna hate. It’s always like this,” Pogačar said, though he acknowledged that scattered jeers from roadside fans were nothing like the venom unleashed in other sports.

“I always think about tennis and Novak Djokovic and how great a mentality he has, because I think he had one of the toughest careers about this, about getting a lot of boos and unnecessary hate because he’s the greatest. When someone is booing, I look up to Novak Djokovic and think about him.”

It would paint an incomplete picture to suggest that Djokovic’s mixed reception on the tennis circuit is down to his record haul of Grand Slams, mind. His on-court behaviour and outspoken stances on alternative medicine and COVID-19 vaccination have also contributed heavily to his controversial public image.

Pogačar presents a far less abrasive personality to the world than Djokovic, but at this point, his dominance is even more overwhelming than the Serbian’s ever was. It was on show again on stage 10, where he charged his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates to keep the break within range throughout the day.

Although UAE sports director Andrej Hauptman downplayed the idea afterwards, it was clear that Pogačar had a score to settle with the rugged finale to Le Lioran, where he endured his only (minor) setback of the 2024 Tour. On that occasion, Pogačar attacked on the climb of Puy Mary but he was caught by Jonas Vingegaard on the Col du Pertus and then surprised by his rival in the two-up sprint.

As soon as Le Lioran appeared on screen at the route presentation last October, it was inevitable that Pogačar would make a point of winning there. There was a scattering of French riders in the day’s early break, but it was a quixotic kind of effort. They must already have known that there would be no home win on Bastille Day.

That thought might have informed some of the whistles directed at UAE as they remorselessly kept the break within range throughout the afternoon in the Massif Central. The ‘no gifts’ mindset of Pogačar’s team here carries echoes of US Postal’s relentless approach to the 2004 Tour. 

The outcome was inevitable, and the only real suspense lay in how Pogačar would go about winning. He opted against attacking on the Puy Mary this time, mindful that he had over-extended himself two years ago. 

On the Col du Pertus, meanwhile, it briefly looked as though UAE had dipped too deeply into their own considerable reserves. When Adam Yates swung off, Pogačar had only Isaac del Toro for company, and it was Vingegaard’s teammate Davide Piganzoli who eventually took up the reins.

The illusion of Pogačar’s vulnerability didn’t last very long. Although some of his teammates – specifically Del Toro and Brandon McNulty – were more subdued than normal, it made no material difference to the Slovenian’s afternoon. As ever in this remarkable imperial phase of his career, he was stronger than any weaknesses in his team or any flaws in their strategy.

The upper reaches of the Col du Pertus offered the most vivid demonstration of Pogačar’s scarcely believable superiority. When he launched his attack with a kilometre of the climb to go, Vingegaard didn’t even deign to follow. It was as though Pogačar were from another dimension, invisible to the human eye. 

When Pogačar accelerated, he was exactly 45 seconds behind lone leader Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), who had attacked with intent on the Puy Mary. Carapaz, a past Giro d’Italia and Olympic champion, is one of the very best riders in the peloton, but Pogačar recouped that deficit in the space of 700m before blasting by the Ecuadorian as though he were a Gran Fondo straggler.

From there, it was the habitual procession. Pogačar danced up the Col de Fonte de Cère to annex the 24th stage win of his Tour career, 32 seconds clear of Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). As an added bonus, Vingegaard faded in the closing metres after leading the chase, coughing up another 44 seconds to the world champion.

Pogačar’s overall lead now stands at 3:36 over Vingegaard, the heftiest advantage he has ever enjoyed at this early juncture of the Tour. That has led to some wailing and gnashing of teeth over ASO’s course design, but the organiser was in something of a bind. This particular iteration of Pogačar would run up the score at the Tour even if the route were composed of 21 criteriums. Nothing to be done.

There will at least be other GC storylines to follow at this Tour, from Paul Seixas’ assured debut to Evenepoel’s mixed signals, from Vingegaard’s diligent but doomed effort to Juan Ayuso’s growing confidence. 

But the race for the yellow jersey looks to be over even before the race has reached its midpoint, and that might explain why Pogačar saw fit to draw attention to those boos. In a race where he has no rivals on the road, he seems to have started looking for them on the roadside instead. 

Pogačar isn’t the first Tour champion to keep his blade sharp by focusing on those who root against him. Jacques Anquetil, stung by criticism of his third place in 1959, later christened his boat Sifflets ’59 – ‘Whistles of ’59.’ Lance Armstrong called out the “cynics and the sceptics” after his later-rescinded 2005 Tour win. Team Sky thrived amid a siege mentality a decade ago.

“To all the boo-ers, I think they just give more of a boost to my teammates,” Pogačar said in his press conference. “They put the, how you say, wood on the fire.”