'I just want better legs' - Pogacar faces Ventoux and Col de la Loze redemption

The Tour de France is heading into its third week with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in a strong position with six stages to go. However, this week’s mountainous closing stages include the scenes of two of his very few Tour de France capitulations, the Col de la Loze, and up first, Mont Ventoux.

Tomorrow’s 16th stage sees the emblematic Mont Ventoux take centre stage as the day’s only climb. However, in 2021 it was climbed twice, Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) winning in the valley in Malaucène, while behind him, the second time up the Ginat of Provence, his team mate, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) rode Pogačar off his wheel, only for the Slovenian to catch him on the descent.

Then on Thursday, the state will finish at the Col de la Loze, where, in 2023, Pogačar’s race radio crackled with something we thought we would never hear, “I’m gone. I’m dead.” Vingegaard put almost six minutes into him that day, cementing a second yellow jersey, and while the Dane will be hoping for a repeat performance this week, is Pogačar looking for revenge? 

“I will not say that I'm looking for revenge or something, I just want to have better legs than those two days in the past. That's all I'm looking forward for it,” Pogačar told reporters during Monday’s rest day press conference.

“It was a race situation, and it's not about the climb that it suits him better, or suits him worse, it’s just the race situation. I think all the climbs are more or less the same. If they are 15 kilometres at 10 percent, those are the stats, it’s not about what name it carries. I actually like all of these climbs. Mont Ventoux is super iconic, and Col de la Loze for me, is one of the hardest climbs I've ever done in my career. So I'm actually looking forward for these two stages."

“The parcours was, I'm almost confident to say, it was designed to give me a bit of a scare,” Pogačar continued. “Because we've been to Hautacam, we are going to Mont Ventoux and Col de la Loze, where Jonas dropped me all three times.”

Vingegaard might have put more than a minute into him on Hautacam in 2022, but it was roles reversed when they returned last week for stage 12 of this year’s race. There, Pogačar won by 2.10, a huge contribution to the 4.13 advantage he takes into this final week, and while he is confident, he is either polite or genuinely wary. 

“I'm pretty sure that Jonas can be confident as well, because he's in really good shape, like we saw in the TT and the day after in Superbagnères he was, he was really flying. So I need to keep focus, I need to keep eating well, sleeping well and yeah, keep this mood that we have in this group. 

“Keep up the motivation and be confident for the last week, because I think it's going to be tough. But yeah, we are ready for a fight with everybody, especially with Jonas.”

Let battle be joined.