Pogacar can't believe his own eyes after brilliant time trial in oversized suit and huge time loss for Vingegaard

Pogacar started as the penultimate rider and it was immediately noticeable that the sleeves of his time trial suit – provided by the organization for the mountains classification leader – did not fit snugly. At the finish, it was also clear that there was a lot of excess fabric around the stomach. This stood in stark contrast to the ultra-fast skinsuits worn by Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard, who were not required to wear a jersey provided by the organization.

Evenepoel blasted to an impressive time trial victory in his world champion rainbow jersey, but Pogacar calmly finished second, just 16 seconds behind the Belgian from Soudal-Quick Step. As a result, Pogi took the yellow jersey from Mathieu van der Poel and now has a lead of 42 seconds over the new number two, Evenepoel. And Vingegaard? He was a big disappointment in 13th place, finishing 1:21 behind the stage winner and thus 1:05 behind his main rival Pogacar.

Read more below the photo.

How endearing: the clear look of surprise when Pogacar saw at the finish that he had come second and delivered a huge blow to Vingegaard. “I’m very happy with my time trial. I finish on this course just 16 seconds behind the world champion and Olympic champion, the best time trialist in the world. That’s a very good result for me,” said the moral winner of the day to outlets including Sporza.

Aerodynamics specialists might even say that Pogacar could have won in a UAE skinsuit, but that didn’t matter at all. The three-time Tour winner is once again firmly in yellow after just five days, the jersey he has worn so many times before. “I’m happy with the yellow, although I will have to hold on to it for a very long time. I exceeded my expectations today and I’m very happy. I had expected Vingegaard to be closer or even better than me.”

“I’m very satisfied that I gained time on Jonas,” was his conclusion. Pogacar can now continue the Tour from his beloved position of divide and conquer. Vingegaard now has to try to make up a deficit of 1 minute and 13 seconds. “He will definitely try to take back time, maybe even in the coming days. So we need to stay focused to keep the yellow until Paris. I want to be the leader there, but I don’t necessarily need to wear the jersey every day. The most important thing is yellow in Paris.”

To wash away his poor time trial in the Dauphiné, Pogacar said he trained on his time trial bike in the weeks before the Tour. “I did some time trial training after the Dauphiné. I needed to believe in myself again. In the Dauphiné, I started too slowly, but today I paced it perfectly. I was able to give everything until the end.” In the Dauphiné in June, Pogacar lost 45 seconds to Evenepoel and nearly half a minute to Vingegaard. This time, however, the tables were turned.