As the shock waves settled on former Tour de France leader Tadej Pogačar’s surprise defeat on the Col du Granon on Wednesday, from management to riders to Pogačar himself, UAE Team Emirates adamantly remained that the fight was far from over.
Surely very little, though, could have prepared Pogačar’s team for the dramatic events of five kilometres from the top of the Granon as Jonas Vingegaard sped away from the defending champion. Certainly there was no hint of any issues from the yellow jersey himself when the Tour favourites rattled past the long line of team buses parked up on the broad country road used by the race to get to the foot of the Granon and the day’s crunch climb.
Rather, albeit gesturing at the speed of the stage with one hand, Pogačar even gave the TV cameras a big smile as they headed towards the base of the climb. Everything, then, seemed to be in order for the stage to witness a further strengthening of his near-three year domination in the Tour de France.
But as we all know, the Granon proved to be anything but business as usual for Pogačar. And less than an hour later, as riders and team officials began to pick their way back from the summit to the dozen or so team buses and the threat of thunderstorms darkened the sky, the atmosphere at the UAE Team Emirates bus and its small flotilla of support vehicles on one side of the country road remained, if not markedly gloomy, understandably flat.
Certainly, like the rest of the Tour, after Pogačar’s utterly surprising loss of the yellow jersey, UAE had a lot of food for thought. But even so, mechanics and team officials quietly and efficiently went about their usual post-stage business, albeit watched by a growing crowd of journalists and irritated police officers trying in vain to keep them off the road as team vehicles roared through. Meanwhile a small crowd of fans sat down in a long line, much to the police initial annoyance, in a large hayfield just above to watch events unfold below them.
Yet when team manager Mauro Gianetti stepped off the bus to talk to the media in a fluent series of English, French and Italian, no matter the language his message was clear: the events on Granon were an important defeat, but not a rout, and both Pogačar and the squad would be back in the game from stage 12 onwards.
“I think that, first of all, it’s a good day for cycling, because the riders put on a show today,” Gianetti said. “It shouldn’t be forgotten so quickly that Jumbo – and…
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