After ten stages of the Tour de France, Tadej Pogačar and the rest of the peloton have finally gotten to a well-earned rest day in Toulouse, one day later than normal.
The UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader will be back in the rainbow jersey of world champion on Wednesday for stage 11 after giving up the maillot jaune to breakaway rider Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) on Monday, but he hopes to get it back later this week.
Pogačar did not hold a press conference on the rest day; instead, his team sent a recording of his comments after the team enjoyed their traditional coffee-stop ride and lunch.
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"So far, so good," Pogačar summed up the Tour de France situation for him. "We had a nice ride and a good coffee stop. Now we did the barber, nice lunch with a burger ... now it's time to take a nap and massage, and then it's already dinner and almost back on the race. So the rest day will be over quite fast."
He added that he was "so happy" to get to the rest day, "because the first nine days were really hectic and nervous, and we expected this. I'm just happy that we survived that – I mean, João, didn't, but here we are now. Now, our terrain, climbing terrain, is coming, so it will be less stress."
With two stage wins, four days in the maillot jaune, two days leading the points classification and four atop the mountains classification standings, Pogačar has finally absolved himself of all of the post-stage podiums after giving away his last jersey, that of race leader, on Monday to Healy.
"We will see if Ben can hold on to the yellow jersey for a couple of stages," Pogačar said.
"I think that he spent a lot of time in the breakaway already, so I hope he feels tired and we can fight again for the yellow in the next coming stages – maybe not tomorrow [a flattish stage 11 around Toulouse] but Hautacam [on Thursday], and then the time trial at [Peyragudes] and [Saturday's stage to] Superbagneres - it's gonna be three really nice climbing days."
The only regret he had was that the team lost João Almeida on Sunday to the injuries the Portuguese rider sustained in a crash on stage 7.
"That's the only big blow ... He showed a true warrior spirit in the last two days that he was riding. But I cannot imagine riding with a broken rib and all the other injuries, so I'm really sad that he had to leave, because we had a really nice group and a really good atmosphere, and he was looking forward so much for the next two weeks to defend the yellow jersey, which we lost yesterday.
"But that's not too much of a big deal, because we still sit quite close to it. The main GC rivals are still a little bit behind. They will have to attack."
Pogačar is just 29 seconds behind Healy but, more importantly, 1:00 ahead of Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep) and 1:17 over Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike). However, with the major mountain stages still to come, there hasn't been a "true indicator" of his competitors' form.
"The level is so high in this Tour – [the first] nine stages were short, explosive, nervous, stressful – all the teams show that they can ride the front, they can they can fight. Yesterday, stage 10 was the first hard day. It was super hard to control, and we could see that our team is doing super good, even though we lost João and Pavel [Sivakov] is suffering a little bit from illness.
"But we can already see who is where, a little bit, on the climbs. But I think it's not really a true indicator of the other GC contenders. I think the main goal for everybody will be this week, with the big mountains, with the uphill time trial. So, I think we can assess more in the upcoming days. But I think it's gonna be a huge fight for the podium and for the yellow."
The second week of racing, since the rest day came one day later than usual, will be only five stages, but three of them will be quite intense.
"I expect it's going to be a really fast week in terms of how fast it will end because we extended the first week for one day, and so now the second week is one day shorter – and also, one time trial in the middle, so everything will go super quick.
"I think this week can already be quite decisive. Normally, the second week is already always reserved a bit for semi-mountains and breakaways and maybe one big mountain day. But this year, this week is almost as hard as the final week. So I think we can see already some big gaps in the GC in the upcoming days.
"I feel it's going to be an interesting week, I'm looking forward to Hautacam and especially for the time trial at Peyragudes – these two stages, I am really looking forward to. And then it's almost already the third week."
The Tour de France continues on Wednesday with a 156.8km circuit around Toulouse with four small fourth-category climbs and one tougher ascent, the Côte de Pech David (800m at 12.4%) coming inside the final 10km.
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