By Julien Pretot
NOGARO, France (Reuters) – After a fine start in the Spanish Basque country, Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Emirates team are heading to the first mountain block of the Tour de France brimming with confidence and a possible edge over defending champion Jonas Vingegaard.
Last year, Pogacar cracked under pressure from Vingegaard’s Jumbo Visma team, who also boasted three-time Vuelta champion Primoz Roglic, and the Dutch outfit’s double act worked wonders even if the Slovenian later abandoned.
Dane Vingegaard this year has to do without Roglic, who skipped the Tour after winning the Giro d’Italia, while UAE Emirates have recruited Adam Yates, who would be a likely leader in most other teams.
The Briton is the overall leader going into Wednesday’s first mountain stage, a 162.5-km trek from Pau to Laruns, featuring the punishing Col de Soudet (15.2km at 7.2%) and Col de Marie Blanque (7.7km at 8.6%).
Pogacar is in second place, six seconds behind, with Vingegaard a further 11 seconds adrift after the 24-year-old Slovenian picked up bonus seconds along the way.
His aggressive style of racing will this year be supported by a team who have more firepower than last year with Yates, a rejuvenated Rafal Majka and Austrian Felix Grosschartner, who joined during the close season.
While Jumbo Visma started the Tour with two leaders in Vingegaard and Roglic last year, the pecking order at UAE Emirates is crystal clear.
“In the end Tadej is the leader, he’s our man for (the title in) Paris. We’ll see the kind of legs we have in the mountains,” Yates, who won the opening stage in Bilbao last Saturday, told reporters.
“So far I’ve been feeling pretty good so we’ll see what we can do,” he added, pointing out Jumbo Visma’s potential weakness — which was UAE Emirates’s in the previous edition.
“If you only have one leader anything can happen. Having two guys, at least there’s more safety in the mountains, you have two options, two cards to play and that’s been the plan from the beginning,” he said.
Yates has been enjoying his three days in yellow but he knows he might have to surrender it soon.
“It has been great to have it in the last few days,” he said.
“In the end the only one (yellow) jersey that matters is the one in Paris. I came to the team to help Tadej on the Tour and here I am. It’s been fantastic but I signed for Tadej on the Tour.”
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ken Ferris)
