Tadej Pogacar insists tomorrow’s individual time trial, the last realistic stumbling block to halting a second Tour de France, holds no fear for him.
The 22-year-old has dominated the race, winning back-to-back stages yesterday. And having won the previous individual time trial at this year’s Tour is likely to extend his lead in that particular race against the clock.
The race returned to a flat stage today but, asked if the 30.8kilometre ride from Libourne to St Emilion held any concerns, the Slovenian said: “Why should I be worried? You can lose six minutes in a time trial. It’s happened before but I’m pretty confident.”
Pogacar won the Tour on his debut last year when then race leader Primoz Roglic lost two minutes to his rival in the late time trial and, with it, the leader’s yellow jersey and the race.
This year, Pogacar has shown few signs of having a similar blow-out, proving himself a class apart for a second consecutive mountain stage yesterday despite the joint challenges of Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz.
He now boasts a lead of 5minutes and 45seconds over Dutchman Vingegaard. After his latest stage win, Pogacar said: “It’s unbelievable. After yesterday, I felt really good and I’m really happy with the win. It’s crazy. There’s still three days to go so you never know but it looks good.
“It was super hard. Already on the Col du Tourmalet the pace was such that you just sit in the wheel and forget about everything and then, on the last climb, that was the maximum.”
