Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) was as surprised as everyone else when his teammate and yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar asked him to attack with just over seven kilometres to go on the final ascent of the Pla d’Adet on stage 14 at the Tour de France.
In the end, the team tactic served an important role in the outcome of the stage, allowing Pogačar to bridge across and then launch his own winning attack 4.6km from the top of the climb.
“It’s a little bit of improvisation. I was ready to do the pace like normal, and he told me to attack; I was like, ‘What are you on about?’ so I attacked and looked behind a couple of times to see where he was, and he came across," Yates said to ITV and Eurosport at the finish.
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"I couldn't do too much for him because I was a little bit cooked from the effort, but in the end, it was a good day, and we took some time."
UAE Team Emirates set the pace for their yellow jersey, Pogačar, for nearly all of the 152km stage from Pau to Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d'Adet, which included a mid-race climb over the Col du Tourmalet.
Asked if he knew why Pogačar would ask him to attack on the final climb, Yates said, he wasn't sure at the time, going with the flow of his leader's instruction.
“With Tadej, I’ve got no idea. This morning, he was like, 'You can win if you go full gas', and then I was looking behind to see if he was bridging, and you never know. The good thing is, the team’s working super well, and we controlled all day," Yates said.
Pogačar soloed to victory while Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) struggled to follow his attack and lost a valuable 39 seconds on the final ascent. While Vingegaard moved up to second overall, he now has to make up 1:57 if he wants to win the yellow jersey.
Likewise, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) finished in third place on the day but lost 1:10. He slipped from second to third place overall and is now 2:22 back.
“It’s a big chunk," Yates said, feeling as though UAE Team Emirates' efforts have paid off.
"The other day, we tried from afar, and it didn’t really work out, and today we tried a little bit shorter, still quite far out in my opinion, like 6-7kms, but yeah, you see the result, we get some good time and keep chipping away until the final.”
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