'We will survive the next two days' - Pogacar insists illness won't hamper UAE in Tour finale

After dictating terms throughout this Tour, UAE were rather more subdued on stage 18, with an ill Brandon McNulty dropped on the day’s first climb and abandoning after spending more than 50km alone at the back of the race.

Adam Yates, who fell ill following the rest day and struggled on Wednesday, was again in difficulty on the road to Orcières-Merlette, coming in more than 28 minutes down, while Tim Wellens finished last on the stage, rolling home alone and 43 minutes behind the day’s winner Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).

“I’m really sad that today Brandon felt so bad and he could not finish,” Pogačar said in his post-stage press conference. “We will miss him the next two days, obviously. But I think Adam is getting better and tomorrow I think he’ll be able to go with the flow. We’ll survive the stage tomorrow and try to come to Alpe d’Huez and then see what we can do.”

Pogačar only had Isaac del Toro for company from UAE on the final climb to Orcières-Merlette, where Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe set the pace in the yellow jersey group, albeit with the aim of controlling the race rather than blowing it apart.

It made for a considerable change from UAE’s numerical superiority in the mountains in the Pyrenees, but Pogačar insisted his team was still strong enough to defend his yellow jersey in the days ahead.

With three stages remaining, Pogačar is 4:32 ahead of Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull) in the overall standings, while Del Toro lies third at 6:51.

“Felix [Grossschartner] is riding super well, Nils Politt also, Isaac is amazing, Adam is getting better,” Pogačar said. “With Tim [Wellens], I think when you give him a little bit of motivation, then he always grabs it and goes through all the pain. And Florian [Vermeersch] can be helpful from the start. 

“I think we can manage. You know, it’s the third week, everybody and all the teams are a bit suffering. You can see it now, bodies everywhere on a stage like today already. So yeah, we will keep fighting and I believe we can do it. We’ll see.”

In particular, Pogačar was adamant that Yates was recovering after his illness peaked ahead of Tuesday’s time trial, and he backed the Briton to play a key role in stage 20, the toughest of the entire Tour.

“Adam didn’t need to necessarily to overdo it today and yesterday,” Pogačar said. “Yesterday he really suffered on the bike but today he was already better, and I think tomorrow it's a relatively good stage for Adam to survive and not to spend too much energy. Then I hope that he will be good for Saturday, because on Saturday it’s going to be important to have a strong team.”

The Tour climbs Alpe d’Huez via the classic approach from Bourg d’Oisans on Friday, and there has been speculation that Pogačar – with four wins already to his name – might break Marco Pantani’s 31-year-old record time for the ascent.

The yellow jersey refused to be drawn when asked if he would race more defensively given the issues affecting his team.

“Well, it depends,” he said. “If the situation is like this and the guys don’t get better from the sickness, then you never know what you have to do. In the end you need to ride on instinct. But I believe that all will be good with the team, and we will survive the next two days.”