Tadej Pogačar has confirmed the full UAE Team Emirates squad for the fast approaching Tour de France as he gets set to challenge for a third overall victory, with Adam Yates set to play a key role.
Fresh off the back of his dominant Giro d’Italia victory, in which he took six individual stage victories, Pogačar appeared on the Watts Occuring podcast and ran Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe through the team that will back him at the French Grand Tour.
The UAE squad has been largely known for some time, but the Slovenian confirmed the full team on the podcast.
"From December it didn’t move, we have a full star team," Pogačar said. "Yates will be my right hand [man]. Then [Juan] Ayuso, [João] Almeida are super-climbing domestiques. [Rafal] Majka will stay at home, I think he’s quite sad about this. Then [Marc] Soler and [Pavel] Sivakov will be the bigger climbers that can still maybe do something on the flat. Then Nils Pollitt and Tim Wellens too."
"Blimey! That is a hit squad," Thomas said in response to hearing the list of riders both he and Ineos Grenadiers will go up against in France.
"It is, it is. And it scares me also," Pogačar jokingly added in response to Thomas’ assessment.
Pogačar took control of the Giro from the word go in May and rarely looked back. He explained that the different nature of this year’s Tour may mean that an aggressive start from UAE is unlikely to materialise.
Adam Yates famously pulled on the race’s first yellow jersey in Bilbao last year, but Pogačar said a different approach may be needed for the first few stages in Italy.
"The start is super hard," he said. "In Bilbao we were super aggressive and that backfired a bit. Ok, the shape was not super good, like crazy good last year, so I need to think about it a bit."
"I think the last three stages with how they designed this route, the last three days are brutal," he added as he looked ahead to the final week which will see the race conclude in Nice due to the Paris Olympics.
Meanwhile much of the talk in the build-up to the Tour so far has been based around whether or not two-time champion Jonas Vingegaard will be on the start line in Florence. Back in April, the Danish rider suffered brutal injuries including a broken collarbone, fractured ribs and punctured lung, in a high speed crash at Itzulia Basque Country.
Vingegaard has only recently returned to training as he looks to get fit for the Tour. His coach Tim Heemskerk recently told Cycling Weekly that he will only travel to Florence if 100% fit. His training has stepped up as he headed to an altitude camp in Tignes this month.
Pogačar and Thomas both said that they expect the Dane to be ready in time.
Pogačar said: "For me, yes [he will be at the start]. I think he was riding the bike quite soon after leaving the hospital so if he’s comfortable already riding on the bike back then he can be in good shape.
"The thing most people are saying is that it depends if he can reach race weight, but I don’t think it will be a problem."
"If he’s fine to push himself in training then I think he can still be really good," Thomas added.
The Tour de France gets underway in Florence, Italy on Saturday 29 June.
