'Our terrain is coming' - Pogacar gears up for Pyrenees at Tour de France

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has expressed relief at successfully navigating the formidable opening week of the Tour de France in Northern France, as he looks ahead to the upcoming action in the Pyrenees in the second week of racing

Speaking to the team's media officer during Tuesday's rest day, the World Champion reflected on a successful but challenging first 10 stages, which saw highs such as winning two stages and wearing yellow, but also lows such as losing key lieutenant João Almeida, who succumbed to injuries sustained in a crash on stage seven. 

"When we arrived to yesterday's stage, I was so happy because the first nine stages were really hectic and nervous, and we expected this," Pogačar admitted. 

"So yeah, I’m just happy we survived that, I mean João didn't, but here we are now, our terrain is coming, the climbing terrain, so it will be less stress."

“We can generally say that it was a really good week, except that we lost João, that’s the only big blow, but otherwise we sit comfortably in GC and we are ready to attack the mountains," Pogačar concluded.

Pogačar paid great respect to his Portuguese teammate, praising his fortitude, after Almeida continued to race despite crashing on stage 7, which left him with significant injuries. The loss of Almeida, who finished 4th in the GC twelve months ago, marks a blow for the team, as he arrived at the Tour in fine form off the back of winning the Tour de Suisse, and proved in the first seven stages the key role he could play in supporting Pogačar.

“Yeah, we lost João, he showed true warrior spirit in the last two days that he was riding, but I can’t imagine riding with a broken rib and other injuries," Pogačar said. 

"I’m really sad that he had to leave because we had a really nice group and really good atmosphere, and he was looking forward to the next two weeks to defend the yellow jersey, which we lost yesterday.”

Pogačar moved into the yellow jersey after the individual time trial on stage five, before Mathieu van der Poel's breakaway heroics earned the Dutchman one more day in yellow, by a single second, until Pogačar stormed to victory on the Mûr de Bretagne to retake the lead. 

Stage 10 saw another epic breakaway performance, which took the yellow jersey away from the Slovenian, this time, it's Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) who is the new clubhouse leader on the rest day. Meanwhile, Pogačar sits strong in 2nd at 29 seconds and crucially has the upper hand over his main rival, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike), who sits in 4th, 1:17 behind his eternal rival.

“It’s not too much of a big deal because we still sit quite close to it," Pogačar said about Healy moving into yellow on stage 10. "The main GC rivals are still a little bit behind, they will have to attack, and yeah, we will see if Ben can hold on to the yellow jersey for a couple of stages.”

"I think that he [Healy] spent a lot of time in breakaways already, so I hope he feels tired and that we can fight again for the yellow in the next coming stages, maybe not tomorrow, but Hautacam and the time trials, and Superbagneres, it’s going to be three really nice climbing days," Pogačar added.

The World Champion looked ahead to what he described as an 'interesting week' to come, which features two summit finishes and a mountain time trial in the Pyrenees, and stated the significant impact that the second week could play in the fight for yellow. 

“Normally second week is always reserved a bit for semi mountains and breakaway, and maybe one big mountain day, but this year, this week is almost as hard as the final week, so I think we can already see some big gaps in the GC in the coming days," Pogačar said.

“I feel it's going to be an interesting week, I’m looking forward to Hautacam and especially the time trial in Peyragudes. These two stages I’m really looking forward to, and then it’s almost the third week," Pogačar added.

"The level is so high in this Tour," was Pogačar's response when asked how he assessed his rivals so far. "I mean obviously, now it was like nine stages were short, explosive, nervous, stressful, all the teams showed they can ride at the front, they can fight.

“Yesterday stage 10 was the first hard day, it was super hard to control, we could see that our team was doing super good even though we lost João and Pavel [Sivakov] is a little bit suffering from illness,” Pogačar added.

Pogačar revealed that there were some things that he was able to learn about some of the other GC contenders on the tough stage on Bastille Day, but acknowledged that the truth will be made a lot clearer during the tough upcoming second week of racing in the Pyrenees.

‘But yesterday [stage 10] we can see already who is where a little bit on the climbs, but I don’t think it's a true indicator of all the GC contenders, individually. The main goal for everybody will be this week with the big mountains, uphill time trial.”

“I think we can assess more in the upcoming days, but the field is quite packed and it’s going to be a huge fight for the podium and yellow.”