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Such was the exuberance of Tadej Pogačar’s celebration after finishing third on Stage 1 of the Tour de France, a few thought that he thought he had won. However, the two-time Tour de France winner made an immediate beeline to his teammate who had crossed the line 12 seconds earlier, the new leader of the race, Adam Yates.
Yates won the stage ahead of his twin brother Simon 12 seconds ahead of the group that Pogačar led to the line, escaping after UAE Team Emirates had blown the race open on the Cote de Pike.
"When I crossed the line and I saw that Adam had won, I was maybe even more happy than if I'd won. It's a double celebration," Pogačar said.
The second part of the celebration was for a small victory over main rival for the Tour de France overall title, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) with Pogačar taking four seconds in bonus time on the line to claim early bragging rights.
Pogačar wasn’t able to shake Vingegaard with his attack to deal a substantial blow to the defending champion, but a stage win within the team and some bonus seconds had the Slovenian star grinning from ear to ear.
"It's an amazing start," Pogačar said. "It reminds me of 2020 when (then-teammate) Alex Kristoff won the first stage in Nice and by the end it was a good Tour. We hope for the same this year."
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Yates had been named co-leader of the team pre-race by UAE Team Emirates, but despite being in the yellow jersey in a seeming vindication of that policy, Yates was quick to pledge his allegiance to Pogačar.
“I just want to keep my feet on the ground,” said Yates. “We’re here with Tadej the boss, he’s shown before he’s the best in the world.
“Some people doubted having two guys as leader, I’m not really a leader I’m still more in support, and if doing this can put the other teams under pressure. Like I said, over the next few weeks, I’m all for Tadej, I’m sure we’ll do a good job.”
That led SBS commentator Matthew Keenan to exclaim “Well he’s blown the co-leader theory out the window!”. Yates didn’t seem like he was attempting to deceive, but he is one of the best climbers in the world and on one of the strongest teams.
“Well, if he didn’t have some some leadership opportunities, he wouldn’t have been able to go off the front and get a stage win today,” responded Simon Gerrans during commentary. A year after a 1-2 peppering of attacks on Pogačar by Vingegaard and Primož Roglič cracked him on the infamous stage 11 of the 2022 Tour de France, UAE Team Emirates appear to have come back with a similar strategy to use against their yellow jersey rivals.
