Tadej Pogacar wears the yellow jacket again in the Tour de France. And much sooner than anticipated.
On the way to his consecrations in the 2020 and 2021 editions, the Slovenian cyclist seized the jersey in the mountains, but this Thursday he became strong on the Côte des Religieuses — a more modest climb — in the border town of Longwy.
To a question about wearing the yellow, something that had not been confirmed when being interviewed after winning the sixth stage, Pogacar said that “everything else is an extra bonus”.
Pogacar won in a short sprint after the longest stage of this year’s tour, beating France’s David Gaudu and Australia’s Michael Matthews. It was his first stage win this month.
Pogacar was the new leader of the general classification with a difference of four seconds over the American Neilson Powless, courtesy of the bonus seconds for the results in the stage.
“Each victory is better than the previous one,” said Pogacar. “The last two climbs were very heavy and chaotic. But he had good legs to get it.”
Wout Van Aert was setting the pace on the Tour ahead of a nearly 200-kilometre (137-mile) stage, covering territory in Belgium and northern France. The Belgian was the focus of attention with a breakaway, but he was caught with 11 kilometers to go. Van Aert ended up hanging from the peloton, falling behind for more than seven minutes.
Pogacar had never been in the lead so early in the Tour. He donned the yellow jersey on stage 20 in 2020 and on stage 8 last year.
Friday’s will be the first mountain stage of this Tour, precisely in the place where the rider of the UAE Team Emirates team was noticed. It will be a 176-kilometre (109-mile) route that will start in Tomblaine and finish at the peak of La Planche des Belles Filles. That’s where he hit the ground running to take the jersey from compatriot Primoz Roglic on the penultimate stage in 2020.
On Thursday, Pogacar reckoned Van Aert was able to win the stage and credited his team for “an excellent job” of putting him in a good position to challenge for victory on the Côte des Religieuses climb.
Van Aert took the lead on Saturday, including a stage win in between. Now he will have to settle for wearing the green shirt to the leader of the classification for the best sprinter.
“The yellow jersey is prettier than the green one, but I enjoyed wearing the yellow one and I’m going to show off the green one as well,” he said.
