Tadej Pogačar entered the 2022 Tour de France as the overall favourite for victory in Paris, but the defending champion now has to go on the attack in the Pyrenees as he resumes his battle with overall leader Jonas Vingegaard.
Following Monday's rest day in Carcassonne, the Tour resumes with a Pyrenean triple-header, including summit finishes at Peyragudes and Hautacam. Now lying at 2:22 down on the maillot jaune, Pogačar will have to pick up where he left off at the Alpe d'Huez and Mende, where he attacked the Dane repeatedly.
Pogačar said in a UAE Team Emirates press conference on Monday that his goal is to attack wherever possible, something he already showed from the start of stage 14 to Mende, where he caught Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma napping on the first hill of the day.
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Now, far-removed from the Côte de Saint-Just-Malmont, the high mountains loom, as does a titanic battle for yellow.
"I need to grab every chance," Pogačar said. "I mean every climb there is, I need to try to attack. Try to go as hard as possible in the climbs and try to gain some time. Each day now is very hard and it's possible to do that. I will give everything, and I hope I don't have any regrets after.
"If I see an opportunity to attack, I will. For sure there are many chances to try in the next days. I think I need to reduce all the gap [before] the time trial. As we saw, Jonas is very good at time trials as well.
"I would not bet on the last time trial that I can gain 30 seconds or two minutes, so I will try to give it everything before the time trial to have as less gap as possible. You cannot bet everything on the last TT."
Pogačar faces the biggest challenge of his short but wildly successful Tour de France career in the upcoming days, with a deficit of over two minutes a huge task to overcome. It has now been five days since his unexpected and spectacular collapse on the Col de Granon, and since that stage numerous theories have been put forward to explain the Slovenian's jour sans.
With a full UAE Team Emirates musette supposedly discovered at the base of the climb, a dreaded hunger knock has been the most prominent of those explanations. Pogačar didn't confirm that story, instead suggesting that the repeated attacks from Jumbo-Visma on the Col de Galibier had more to do with his cracking.
"Maybe I was a bit short on fuel but also there I was answering a lot of attacks on Galibier and that drained a lot of energy," he said. "If you do 10 sprints all-out, then Vingegaard and Roglič had to do just five so half less than me. I killed myself there a little bit and maybe I should take more fuel, yeah."
'Everybody will be full gas, not just Jumbo or us'
Since that day, Pogačar has put in numerous attacks on the stages to the Alpe d'Huez and Mende. Vingegaard, though, matched him every step of the way during those stage finales, something which Pogačar noted will give him more motivation in the coming stages.
"I think it gives some more motivation. He's the man to beat," he said. "He's super strong. On the Alpe d'Huez he was there with me, but maybe if I dig deeper and be more confident, maybe I could gain some time.
"In Mende it was a shorter climb, more explosive and he was there on my wheel. It more or less went the same. In three days, a lot can happen. We're all very tired mentally and physically and you can have a bad day or good day, so it's going to be an interesting couple of days."
Like UAE Team Emirates, who are down George Bennett and Vegard Stake Laengen, Jumbo-Visma have also been depleted in recent days with the abandons of Primož Roglič and Steven Kruijswijk.
Both squads now have six riders remaining in the race (the Ineos Grenadiers squad of third-placed Geraint Thomas have all eight men left), something which Pogačar acknowledged would even things up in the mountains – while at the same time dismissing any ideas of teaming up with Ineos to take on Vingegaard.
"If you look by numbers how many riders are in each team, we'd say we have more or less the same," he said. "We know how hard it was for us when we lost Vegard and George Bennett. We had to race like this for too many days now and for sure it's not going to be easy for Jumbo as well.
"They need to defend the jersey. I need to attack them. Now in the Pyrenees the stages are so hard that I think it will be more man to man. For sure everybody will be full gas, not just Jumbo or us. I think it's going to be more or less racing from the gun for everyone.
"I don't see it as an alliance," he added, referring to Ineos. "They're in a good position with three riders in the top 10, so for sure if they attack then for me it's better because Jumbo needs to answer as well. But for now, they seem to race just for a podium and team classification, so I don't know about alliances.
"I'm going to do my own race with my team and we're going to try as hard as possible."
