Why did Red Bull chase down the stage 3 Romandie break after Pogačar was happy to let it go?

Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG did everything they could not to win on day three of the Tour de Romandie — yet despite his sprint win on Thursday, there were still teams determined to make Friday another sprint. Pogačar could only chuckle about it afterwards.

The race leader had already hinted after stage two on Thursday that he and UAE would prefer to take things easy in stage three. For a long time, that plan worked well enough.

"We kept it under control," Pogačar told Eurosport. "We wanted to ride at a steady tempo until the final climb, and that was the plan on the climb too."

"But one team had other ideas, didn't they," he smiled, nodding towards Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. The German team sent Primož Roglič and Daniel Felipe Martínez up the final climb at full gas, deploying two of their best riders as luxury domestiques.

"That whittled it down to a small group. The all-out pace was fine by us too, in the end. The break was strong, but with INEOS and Lidl-Trek helping out, they were brought back. Those teams did a good job. It was a good day for us."

Why did Red Bull ride so hard? The answer was Finn Fisher-Black. The New Zealander had finished third in the sprint the day before and was hoping to go one better.

"It's not nice to finish second, especially not after all the good work the team did," he said after the stage.

"It's disappointing — though I'm getting closer to a win, and losing to Godon is nothing to be ashamed of. He's hard to beat, which is why we tried to drop him on the climb. He just came back."

With a power sprinter like Godon in the bunch, it was always going to be a tough ask. "I sprinted well, but had nothing left in the final metres. I wanted to go early and make it a long sprint, because I know I can win these kinds of stages. That was the plan today."

Pogačar finished fourth and called it "a solid sprint." Against Godon, though, he felt he stood no chance — despite having beaten the Frenchman only the day before.

"When he gets going on his gear, he's gone. Thursday was different — there was more waiting and the speed wasn't as high."

"In those conditions, he can really make the difference over me," Pogačar acknowledged. He had still been forced to dig in, knowing that two hard climbing stages were coming on Saturday and Sunday.

"There are two tough stages ahead, so we wanted to save the legs a bit."

As for whether he would win again on Saturday and claim his third stage of the week — Pogačar was not ready to think about it yet after stage three.

"Let's hold on to the leader's jersey first and then see if we can win the stage. If not, it's not the end of the world."