Tadej Pogačar said he can't wait for the Tour de France to be over and to do "other nice stuff" in his life, as the race approaches the final day in Paris.
He was speaking after stage 18, which saw him put another handful of seconds into his main rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) at a very wet Courchevel, behind winner Ben O'Connor.
But despite his yellow jersey status (and maybe in part because of it) Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) said that the race was beginning to take its toll on his morale.
"It's a point," he agreed wearily when asked whether he was finding the third week tough. "I ask myself why I'm still here – it's so long these three weeks. You count the kilometres to Paris and yes, I can't wait for it to be over so I can do some other nice stuff in my life as well."
The race leader's task is always made that much more gruelling by extra pulls on their time from the race organisation and, in particular, the media. But Pogačar said the fans helped to keep his spirits up, and that having good legs didn't hurt either.
"It's still nice to ride, even in the third week when you're tired and annoyed by everybody around you, more or less, and yeah, you just want to go home," he said. "But in the end, when you ride on these big climbs and people cheer on you and give you the extra motivation, you then realise that it's not so bad. Especially if you have a good legs, then it makes everything quite good."
Once again the Slovenian and his team were subjected to the thumbscrew tactics of Vingegaard's Visma-Lease a Bike, who piled on the pressure on the slopes of the Col de la Madeleine – second of three hors-catégorie climbs on stage 18.
They did the same on the final ascent to Courchevel, but instead of lighting the fuse for a Vingegaard blast-off, UAE Team Emirates-XRG took over and proceeded to decimate the group.
The eventual Vingegaard attack was met without issue by Pogačar, who went on to attack himself in the final kilometre, adding another 11 seconds to his GC lead, which is now 4:26 over the Dane.
Pogačar said afterwards he expected more of the same from Visma-Lease a Bike on tomorrow's stage from Albertville to a brutal summit finish at La Plagne, adding: "It's not over yet. It's still three days to go. But, yeah, I will just try to try my best tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, to keep my keep my lead."
The Tour is never what you'd call plain sailing – even for Tadej Pogačar. But barring a major crash that no one hopes will happen, it will take a fairly catastrophic mechanical or bonk to see him swap places with Vingegaard now.
