After romping into the yellow jersey and taking the stage victory with it on day three of the Tour de France at Les Angles, Tadej Pogačar put up the unlikely theory that he might never win again.
While not a mathematical impossibility, the likelihood of that scenario looks vanishingly small, given the form that the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider has shown over the past three days. While rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) may have swiped a popular yellow jersey on stage one, Pogačar was still fastest up the final climb. Yesterday he gifted the stage win to teammate Isaac Del Toro, before finally opting, as if at will, to take one for himself.
Plus ça change.
Pogacar’s ‘never win again’ suggestion was mostly an attempt to fend off the question of whether he was eyeing up Mark Cavendish’s 35-stage Tour de France win record – which would require 14 more to beat for the Slovenian.
“That’s still quite far away,” Pogačar said. “Maybe today was my last victory ever, so I prefer to stay in the moment… enjoy this victory. Every victory feels very special, and if we can have more moments like yesterday, I’ll also be grateful.
“So far my career is already beyond my wildest imagination, so yeah, I don’t want to think about Mark’s record. Just go with the flow and see what we can do in the future, but yeah, if today is my last victory, I’m happy enough.”
As if to underline the improbability of his ‘last win’ postulation, when asked whether he planned to build his form throughout the race, he said there was no form left to build.
“I think maybe this was in the past, like 20 years ago, when they were aiming that the shape will grow to the last week,” he said. “But I think now these days you need to come with the best shape possible at the start of the Tour, and you go with it. You try every day to recover as much as possible, eat food like a robot, and just go with the flow with what you bring here.”
Last win or not, Pogačar had planned for stage three to be a family affair, with his mother at the finish. However, due to wildfires in the region, a decree issued by the Pyrenees-Orientales department forbade fans from attending the race under threat of prosecution, so she opted to stay away.
“My mum messaged me in the morning, saying, ‘Ah, we cannot come to see the stage today, because of the rules,” he said.
But not everyone was keen on the restrictions, prosecution or not: “We came to 20km to go, and the top of the climb was full of people, which was, for me, nice,” he added. “But yeah, a lot of people decided not to come but still many, many did. Only here in the final, I think, it was a bit less.”
With the heat set to soar to 40 degrees plus for Tuesday’s fourth stage from Carcassonne to Foix, and continued high heat lasting well into the race, today’s ruling may not be the last of the Tour. But as they proved today that won’t necessarily deter the fans. And if Pogačar’s form remains as hot as the fry-an-egg tarmac of southern France, they’re likely to see him win another stage too.
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