After six days of racing at the Tour de France, reigning champion Tadej Pogačar has so far proven himself to be the strongest of the overall contenders in the opening time trial, over the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, and, on Thursday's stage 6, in the hills of the southern Ardennes.
The Slovenian heads into the race's first summit finish at Super Planche des Belles Filles with a lead of four seconds over EF Education-EasyPost's second-placed man, Neilson Powless, but a further 27 seconds on his closest real challenger, 2021 runner-up Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma.
Speaking after his victory in Longwy, close to the border with Belgium and Luxembourg, Pogačar said that he just went with the flow on the hilly finish at the end of the Tour's longest day. That is, rather than wait to claim the yellow jersey at Super Planche, site of his famous come-from-behind Tour win two years ago.
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"I wait for Planche," he told the assembled press. "It's just that I go with the flow. Today here the team believed in me. It was a nice opportunity and I'm super happy to take the win today. But for sure, I did not imagine it before the start.
"So far, so good for us the first week – the first six days, I mean," he added, summing up the opening days of the race. "And tomorrow we enter the climbing part of the Tour, which this year we have a lot of. I think we are in good position to defend the yellow jersey for the next days."
As ever, the 23-year-old seemed laidback and unworried during the media round following yet another Tour success – his seventh stage win, and 17th yellow jersey press conference in three years.
His main rivals at this year's Tour, the Jumbo-Visma squad of Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard, rebounded from Wednesday's taxing day out on the cobbles by sending race leader Wout van Aert into the break of the day. That way, the rest of the squad could take a relative rest rather than work for the Belgian yellow jersey holder.
Pogačar, who lies 2:27 up on Roglič following his rivals' disaster in Arenberg, acknowledged what the team were trying to do, but said that the move was fairly easy to control in the end.
"I think I know what they wanted to do," he said. "If Van Aert wanted to win the stage today, they would need to pull from the peloton, I think, and he decided to try to break away.
"But in the end, I think it was so hard to go in the breakaway and it was only three guys [Quinn Simmons and Jakob Fuglsang – Ed.]. I think that wasn't the perfect scenario for them. I think the perfect scenario would be if there were 10 guys because then would be almost impossible to bring that kind of group back. But it was pretty much that we could control it in the bunch."
Now, Pogačar will face a new – in this year's Tour, at least – kind of challenge on Friday. Super Planche is the first major climbing test of the race, and even if there are tougher climbs lying further into the race, most only expect him to continue his dominance in the Vosges.
"Tomorrow is Super Planche and for sure we want to be at the front tomorrow and go for the stage also because it's a really important stage," Pogačar, who also noted that he's now hoping to hold yellow all the way to Paris, said.
"I really like the climb. I have really nice memories, but it's going to be even more special because my family will be there. My girlfriend will be at the top and I just cannot wait to go there.
"We have a strong team, and we will control. If it's not possible to control until the finish the breakaway, then it will not be disaster if we cannot try to go for the stage, but I would like to go for it and try my best."
