Pogacar cracks "dangerous" Visma | Lease a Bike after brutal stage 7: "I didn’t like that very much"

During the flash interview, he was told he had missed the finish of girlfriend Urska Zigart in the Tour de Suisse. “That sucks,” Pogacar laughed. It had been a brutal day, with the world champion under pressure from start to finish. “Today we wanted to control the climbs, but Visma tried to disrupt everything with all those attacks. I’m really happy with how Pavel (Sivakov) rode today, and the rest of the team, too.”

On the final climb, Pogacar only had the Frenchman left to support him, so he had to take matters into his own hands. “It was all about defense to keep Visma in check, that’s why I went early. I kept a steady pace to the top and I’m really happy I was able to defend the jersey like that.” In the end, Pogacar gained 14 seconds on Vingegaard. Florian Lipowitz came in third at 1:20, and Remco Evenepoel lost more than 2:30.

Visma | Lease a Bike had been making the race brutally hard since the Col de la Madeleine, and on the Col de la Croix de Fer it was clear the Killer Bees had a plan. “They attacked just before the top of the Croix de Fer, and they tried to drop me on the descent. It got pretty dangerous on the first part, I didn’t really like that,” Pogacar admitted. “But that’s modern cycling. Pavel came back and brought control again, so it was all fine after that.”

The Slovenian also had praise for his rival, who stayed much closer this time compared to the stage to Combloux. “Jonas was really strong today, but I didn’t want to go too deep. It was very hot and a really long climb. Luckily I had enough of a gap to ease off a bit in the final kilometer and recover.” Pogacar was happy he still managed to gain time on his closest challenger. “But I know they’ll be stronger in the Tour. Then again, we’ll have two new climbers too, so that’s nice.”