After seven days of racing at the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tadej Pogačar looks all set to walk away with the overall title come Sunday evening. The Slovenian scored his third win of the week on stage 7, soloing home to gain more time on rival Jonas Vingegaard.
He finished atop Valmeinier 1800 with another 14 seconds in hand on the Dane, his GC lead now extended to 1:01 with one stage to go.
A first Critérium du Dauphiné title on his palmarès is no small deal for Pogačar, even if his focus – and that of Vingegaard – instead mainly lies on the Tour de France's yellow jersey next month.
Speaking after the stage on Saturday afternoon, Pogačar said he can't know whether his dominance of the race would affect Vingegaard's mental preparation for July. He did, however, say that the wins and the upper hand in the two-man battle are a bonus for him.
"I don't know him so well as a person if that affects his mental level of how he can prepare now," Pogačar told CyclingPro. "But for sure, for me it's a bonus that I can win today on this kind of stage, super-hot, with big, big mountains. For me, it's a good motivation for the Tour."
Pogačar went clear with 12km to go on the 16km finishing climb, countering a move from Vingegaard's Visma-Lease A Bike teammate Sepp Kuss. The Dutch squad had tried several times during the stage to put the Slovenian on the back foot, but none of the tactics worked out.
In the end, Pogačar needed only Pavel Sivakov to set him up, in the face of four Visma riders. Once he launched, there was nobody who could answer his acceleration, and so he sped away to victory number three.
"I didn't necessarily need all the time in the world today," Pogačar said of his winning move. "I sort of [defended] today, not to have Visma riders attacking all the time. I just tried to pace myself to the top, ease up the last kilometre, and roll through the finish line.
"I'm super happy with how we rode today. They attacked us, we responded, and I think we can be really happy with today. For the Tour, we still have two climbers to come into the team, so I'm super happy with how it went today."
While it doesn't look like a particularly likely scenario, all could still change on Sunday's closing stage to Plateau du Mont-Cenis. Vingegaard is still within touching distance, after all. It's not as though the week has hosted a total trouncing.
Nonetheless, Vingegaard has still been a solid second-best this week. After the stage, Pogačar was asked whether we could be in for a boring Tour, a question Pogačar dismissed, even if he'd love for that to be the case.
"I don't think so," he said. "I would sign on for this – that I'd win it easily. But nothing is easy in cycling, so let's wait and see.
"The Dauphiné cannot tell everything. We're talking every day that the Tour is coming. It's three weeks long, and the Dauphiné is a preparation race, so we will see what happens in the Tour."
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