After suffering significant time losses to his rivals on stage 4 of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) admitted that he got his pacing strategy wrong in the time trial.
It was an odd sight to see the usually infallible Slovenian at such a disadvantage to stage winner Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and second-placed Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), with the eventual deficits being 48 and 28 seconds, respectively, come the finish.
Pogačar will have his work more than cut out for him if he wants to bounce back and win the Dauphiné now, and the terrain of the final three stages offers more than enough up for him to try to wrest back 38 seconds from Evenepoel.
"I didn't do the perfect TT today. I think I probably got the pacing slightly wrong," said Pogačar, his quotes sent by the team after reportedly not speaking to media at the finish.
"I started out on the first section a bit too conservative and should have pushed a bit more there. But it's OK – that's why we are here, to tune up before the Tour and improve."
World and Olympic time trial champion Evenepoel said the effort reminded him of stage 7 of last year's Tour, where he won the race against the clock, but Pogačar, who was 12 seconds slower on that day, would have experienced it quite differently.
The big chance for the road World Champion to take back the time will be on Saturday's Queen stage 7, where a brutal route with three hors categorie climbs should see gaps much bigger than 38 seconds all but decide the overall Dauphiné with one stage to go.
"There are still three big stages to come here and I'm looking forward to it," added Pogačar. "The team is working well and with the rivals we have here, it's the best place to test ourselves."
While the headline of Pogačar's performance on stage 4 was him losing time to both Evenepoel and Vingegaard, he also caught the attention of onlookers following his warm down, when he was spotted taking a closer look at one of the Cervélo time trial bikes ridden by Visma-Lease a Bike.
Despite some reports stating that it was Vingegaard's machine, which he actually admitted to having some gearing issues with, it looked to be the bike of Matteo Jorgenson. The distinction being that the Dane rides on an all-black version of the P5, lacking the same yellow paint design as the US rider and the rest of the Visma squad, likely a weight-saving measure.
Unlike in Formula 1, parc fermé rules won't apply on this occasion, so no fine or penalty will be coming Pogačar's way, but it was odd to see him taking a closer look and checking how heavy his rivals' equipment was. But there isn't much to read into this, unlike the 48-second time loss.
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