'I feel at the best moment of my career' – Tadej Pogačar keeps getting better at the Tour de France

Three-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took another step towards recording a fourth overall victory on stage 12, taking a dominant win atop Hautacam and taking even more time from his rivals with nine stages still to come.

The Slovenian won the stage 2:10 in front of perennial rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), and much further in front of everyone else, propelling himself back into the yellow jersey with now a big 3:31 gap on the Dane.

You only have to go to fourth place before the time gaps become five minutes, and 10th place is already over 12 minutes down on Pogačar. It's an extremely positive position for the race favourite to be in at this point, and evidence that Pogačar is perhaps even better than his last three wins. At this stage in 2024, Pogačar led by 'only' 1:06.

"Based on my feeling, I feel at the best moment of my career," was the new yellow jersey's answer when asked how he feels compared to those previous successful Tours.

"I'm riding in the rainbow jersey, I ride with an amazing team, amazing teammates, so it's like a fairytale for me, riding on the bike these last couple of years."

Not that a 26-year-old would show any signs of slowing down, but Pogačar was also – unpromptedly – philosophical about how much drive he still has.

"[Whilst I still] enjoy this bike riding stuff and I'm enjoying this sufferfest with the fans on the road, then I think I can still go this deep and have this level, this shape," he said. "I think once this fire will go out, I will probably decline my performance, but so far I'd say that now is the peak of my career, and the last two, three years, and I try to hold it as long as I can."

That drive is what delivered Pogačar to not just the yellow jersey, but also the stage win on Thursday. With an enormous breakaway up the road, UAE could have let the stage win go, but instead committed to battling for the stage.

"The plan was to try to win the stage, depending on the breakaway, but we'd go for the stage," Pogačar explained. "It was a really great ride from Uno-X and EF and Nils Politt to control this big breakaway, the dangerous breakaway."

Control the break they did, and then as the race hit the Hautacam, a monster lead-in from Jhonatan Narváez set up Pogačar's attack, with his rainbow jersey never to be seen again by his competitors.

That monster move from Narváez was almost a joke at the start of the day, a callback to a similar move in the Critérium du Dauphiné, and Pogačar wasn't even sure it would work out, but it ended up being part of the key to his victory.

"We were talking yesterday or today at breakfast, remembering about a stage of the Dauphiné, the stage on Friday, we were going all in for the bottom [of the climb]. And Jhony doesn't take jokes, I guess, and he just sent it full [today]," he explained.

"Adam was not in the Dauphiné, so he was like 'what is this guy doing?' but I was like, OK, I see the plan of Jhony, I follow, I try to commit, the worst thing that happens, I can blow and go a bit slower. But in the end, Jhony did a good move, we went full, and then I remained alone, and it was better with a kilometre solo in the finish line."

As well as the material gains Pogačar made on stage 12, he also stamped his foot down against any doubts – about his shape after his crash, about the strength of UAE compared to Visma, or about his ability to beat Vingegaard on the Hautacam, where the Dane has won out previously.

With all that in mind, it wasn't a purely straightforward win for Pogačar.

"If I remember well, I was quite nervous at the start, big breakaway, I was a little bit cranky maybe, so for sure there was nerves," he explained. "For sure, there was playing the role of 2022 when I lost the Tour here. Even though I really like this climb and everything, I lost it that day, so I guess I was really motivated today."

That motivation turned to action when, despite their best efforts to test Pogačar, Visma-Lease a Bike showed instead their own weaknesses, opening up for Pogačar and UAE to pounce.

"The biggest switch in my head was when I saw what Visma tried, they followed the plan, and I saw that not everyone is feeling super great from them," he said, referencing moments such as Matteo Jorgenson and Simon Yates swinging off early.

"That was the moment where I switched [and thought] OK, today can be a really good day, because Jhony was still there, Marc Soler was not far but we were like 'OK, maybe he can come back', Adam was there, Tim was in the front, so all this meant that in the mental part, today can be a good day and in the end when we come to the last climb, I was still feeling OK."

OK is probably an underestimation from the man who took chunks out of all of his competitors today, and scored what may be one of the most decisive victories of this race.

Of course, there is still a lot of this Tour de France to go, and history tells us that anything can change at any time, but if Pogačar really is in the best moment of his career, as he says, it's hard to see where his Tour triumphs may stop.

The Tour de France is the biggest race in cycling, and a Cyclingnews subscription offers you unlimited access to our unrivalled coverage. Get all the breaking news and analysis from our team on the ground in France, plus the latest pro tech, live race reports, and a daily subscriber-only newsletter with exclusive insight into the action. Find out more.