Yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar is still prone to impetuous attacks, he showed today when he tried to break free from GC rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel on the road to Super Devuloy on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
He admitted as much, calling his move on the final climb a "stupid instinct" after the stage, which he finished in 27th place – 7:23 down on lone winner Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).
"It was a stupid instinct," UAE Team Emirates rider Pogačar conceded, "but I did test the legs for the third week, and I think I'm going into the third week with a good shape.
"I also put a bit of pressure on Jonas and Remco," he added.
In fact, Pogačar's attack ultimately came to very little and he was caught by Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) two kilometres later. He finished just two seconds ahead of the Dane and 10 seconds behind Evenepoel, who had put in a late attack of his own and managed to distance the pair.
"Remco did a great attack also in the final, thinking that Jonas or me would react and we would maybe attack each other the line or something. I think he took some seconds," added Pogačar. "For sure that stressed Jonas out a bit, but he had a great team with him.
"So, it was just a normal day in the office," he laughed.
Pogačar was also asked about recent leaks on social media that appear to be reveal the intimate details of his training rides, with speculation that they could be coming from his own team.
But he put on an admirable show of remaining blasé about the whole issue, suggesting to journalists: "Maybe we could all get together and find out who this guy is."
"I think he gets some right, but mostly he gets it wrong," Pogačar said of the information that is being put out. "So I don't know who this guy is or what is his purpose. I think he's just trying to be important on Twitter [now X] and forums or whatever. But I don't follow it."
With Pogačar still more than three minutes up on Vingegaard on GC, and more than five minutes up on third-placed Evenepoel, you might think he can afford to be flippant with his reponses – and his attacks. But there are four hard stages remaining and, as the Slovenian has found out in the past, it can all unravel in one bad day.
