Tadej Pogačar avoided the splits, crashes and chaos of stage 1 of the 2025 Tour de France to finish in the front group and immediately gain 39 seconds on major GC rivals like Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), Mattias Skelmose (Lidl-Trek), Primož Roglič and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansrohe) and others.
Sports Manager Martin Fernandez explained to Cyclingnews that UAE Emirates-XRG's key for this opening week is 'focus, focus, focus."
"Tadej knew he had to focus on the stage, focus on staying safe, focus on recovery and focus on saving the day. He and the team did all of that, so we can be happy," Fernandez told Cyclingnews.
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Pogačar made sure he was in the decisive echelon split sparked by Visma-Lease a Bike with 17km to go.
"It was a hectic day, just as we thought," Pogačar said as he warmed down at the team bus, free from podium duties because he no longer qualifies for the best young rider's white jersey and is not yellow for now.
While not leading the race, Pogačar is the best of the GC contenders classification alongside Vingegaard. However, the Dane's teammate and Giro d'Italia winner Simon Yates ended the stage 6:31 down and immediately slipped out of the GC. Pogačar also lost a key pawn, with Adam Yates losing 5:18, while João Almeida also missed the split and lost 39 seconds.
"I'm just happy day one is done and we can move on," Pogačar said before a team car took him to his hotel near Lille for a massage, dinner and recovery.
"There were some splits in the end. Me and Tim [Wellens] were in the front in the end thanks to a good job from all the team. From kilometre zero we were at the front. It paid off for us in the end."
Positioning was key in the crosswind splits and the many roundabouts on the roads of northern France.
"I think this stage had the record for the number of roundabouts in a race," Fernandez told Cyclingnews.
"There was a lot of nervousness and it was a little too dangerous and stressful today. But we saved the day, so we're happy.
"Almeida lost time but played a key role. He told us via radio who was in the group that also lost contact with the split, so we immediately knew that Roglič, Skjelmose and others were behind."
Stage 2 to Boulogne sur Mer on the coast is a far hillier affair than stage 1, with two short climbs in the final 10km and then another climb to the finish line.
"In the first nine days of the Tour, the time trial is a big day but there are five or six other days like stages which are really complicated," Fernandez said.
"Stage 2 is more the puncheurs. It's a five-minute maximum effort. It's a day for Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe, Marc Hirshi, Wout van Aert and of course Tadej."
"It's the start of a big week," Pogačar said.
"Nine days to go until the rest day, and then we can go from then on. But first, we focus on these nine days."
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