After thirteen stages, Tadej Pogačar has four stage wins in the Tour de France, having claimed victory in Friday’s mountain time trial to Peyragudes. He did so with a large margin of 36 seconds ahead of his rival Jonas Vingegaard, further extending Pogačar’s lead in the general classification. "I’m super happy because this time trial was a big question mark ever since December." Pogačar explained.
"I wanted to do everything perfectly, but the team delivered. Everything was at the highest level," continued the Slovenian leader. "I started the day well and felt good this morning. Then I had a solid warm-up for the time trial. I wanted to go all out from start to finish and give it everything. I almost blew myself up at the end, but I saw the timing (above the finish line, ed.) and that gave me an extra push because I saw I was going to win."
Unlike Vingegaard, who started almost fully equipped with a time trial setup, Pogačar opted to use a regular climbing bike. "That was the key decision— which bike to choose? We always race on this bike; 99 percent of the time we ride it here. We calculated that if you can’t use all your power, like on a TT bike, you end up with the same finishing time. I ride more comfortably on this climbing bike, and it worked out well for me."
"I also wanted to ride without a radio because the tactic was to go full throttle. I only followed the time gaps at the intermediate checkpoints. At the first checkpoint, I was already five seconds in the green, so that motivated me. And at the second checkpoint, the lead was even bigger, so I knew my pace was on point," Pogačar explains.
"I didn’t want to blow up at the start, but I almost did toward the end. With 3 kilometers to go, I took a moment to catch my breath and recover," he added. "I knew the last kick would be super steep, so I wanted to reach it feeling strong in my legs."
Tour de France| Rank | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23:00 | |
| 2 | + 36 | |
| 3 | + 01:20 | |
| 4 | + 01:56 | |
| 5 | + 01:58 | |
| 6 | + 02:03 | |
| 7 | + 02:06 | |
| 8 | + 02:15 | |
| 9 | + 02:21 | |
| 10 | + 02:22 |
