It says a lot about the scale of Tadej Pogačar's superiority in this year's Tour de France than just seconds after praising key rival Jonas Vingegaard's performance in the mountains, he then added that the Danish star is not, in his opinion, as strong as he has been in previous years.
For Pogačar, you could easily say that stage 14 was a 'business as usual' victory. When the Slovenian charged away alone on the upper slopes of the brutally difficult Col du Haag, only one result was really possible: yet another triumph - this one the 25th stage of his career and fourth in exactly a fortnight of racing in this year's Tour, and an even greater advantage overall. With 4:30 on Vingegaard, barring absolute disaster in the seven days of racing that remain, a fifth outright Tour victory is clearly Pogačar's for the asking.
Yet before and after that trademark devastating attack, it was also noticeable that Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) seemed much more comfortable than he had done up to now on perhaps any other ascent of the Tour. Prior to Pogačar going clear, the Dane piled on the pressure to the point where he could put Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), his closest rival overall, up against the ropes.
Then afterwards, for nearly all of a climb with multiple changes of pace and gradient, Vingegaard steadily remained Slovenian's closest pursuer, only struggling slightly at the summit to let Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) close in.
Yet for all Pogačar was impressed by Vingegaard, he still argued that compared their duels of other Tours - and these now stretch back all the way to 2021, the first year Vingegaard finished on the Tour podium - in 2026, he believes the Dane is not quite at the same level that he has been.
"If my power meter is correct when he was pulling he did an amazing performance on the front," Pogačar said in his post-stage press conference. "But I think honestly he is missing a little bit compared to the last few Tours."
"In the bigger mountains maybe he'll get this extra boost and he'll drop me there, you never know. But here I think he is missing a little bit, a bit of grinta."
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"It's a small percent and he's there with me, so I would not count him out for the coming days. Tomorrow [to Plateau de Salaison] is a good climb for him and both stages on Alpe d'Huez are good for him, too."
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) during stage 14 of the 2026 Tour de France (Image credit: Getty Images)
It remains to be seen, as Pogacar says, if Vingegaard will gain renewed force when the race hits the Alps on Sunday. But even before Saturday's latest stunning climbing display, there can be no doubt, either, that if Pogačar is in a position to go on winning stages, too, both this Sunday and next weekend and everything in between, then he will do so. For the Slovenian star, the idea of simply racing conservatively and ensuring that the yellow jersey has the safest passage possible all the way to Paris, as conventional race strategy would recommend, just doesn't seem to come into it.
The reasons behind this are seemingly multiple. For one thing, UAE Team Emirates-XRG head sports director Joxean Fernández Matxin told Cyclingnews earlier in the race that "We don't race defensively." And there's no doubt Pogačar is applying that particular in-house policy with ruthless efficiency, time and again.
Equally importantly, Pogačar is also aware that at bottom line, cycling is far more unpredictable than his relentless run of stage wins and crushing advantage overall makes it appear. In fact, as he knows only too well, and as he pointed out in his press conference, it's a sport where everything can turn on a dime.
As he told one reporter who asked him why he continued to try to win as much as possible, "If you remember, put an example for myself, in 2023, l lost two minutes on time trial and next day eight minutes, think quite obvious that anything can change in one day."
Then there's another reason, of course, which is simply - that if Pogacar can win, he will, because he feels he owes it both to himself and to his team's efforts to put him in a position where he can triumph.
"It was a really strong fight and I couldn't waste my legs," he explained, "I wanted to finish off the good work by the team." Then on top of that, with tens of thousands of fans lining the route through the Vosges, he wanted to pay a kind of homage to the spectators, "because it was one of the craziest finishes of my career."
The idea that Pogačar is having more fun in this year's Tour than in previous editions has gained a lot of ground recently, particularly as he did not seem to be in a good mood at all in the final week of the 2025 race, while this year, one reporter said, he'd actually looked like he was smiling on the ascent of the Col du Haag.
The Slovenian pushed back against that impression, explaining that his 'smiley face' was actually the one he put on when he was making a major effort, as he had been when he attacked. But at the same time, he recognised, compared to last year when in the third week he had a bad knee pain, he was "maybe a bit grumpy in the media zone." But in comparison, "morale is good this year, and [overall] it was good last year also."
He also pointed out that having had two days, Friday over the Ballon d'Alsace and the stage before that, where he hadn't felt so great, Saturday had represented a good opportunity to boost his morale levels again - and there was no denying he'd seized it with both hands.
"I think I can say for now I'm more confident, I must admit that yesterday and two days ago when Trek were going all out, I was thinking, shit this is so hard, I feel so shit, hope I feel a bit better.
"These kinds of days, you have to get through. Today in the morning, spoke to Urska [Zigart, partner] she gave me a morale boost for today, so I was feeling great. And after today, this Tour has been amazing for me.
"For tomorrow, I'm confident, then it's the time trial, [on Tuesday] I need to treat it as a one-day race, and do the best I can do, because I have put a lot of effort into the time trial.
"Then we'll see for Alpe d'Huez what is left in the tank. It's going to be hard next week, but we can go into it feeling confident."
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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