Tadej Pogačar doesn’t tend to voluntarily give up a race lead. When he’s in front, he stays in front. Of the 18 stage races he’s led in his professional career, he’s gone on to win 17. That’s as good as unbeatable. The 2022 Tour de France is the only race he’s lost having previously been in charge.
Since turning pro in 2019, he’s only ceded a race’s leader’s jersey on three occasions, and two (the 2020 Volta a Valenciana and 2024 Tour de France) were due to count-back – he subsequently regained the lead the day after. The other time was this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné, which can be considered the only time he willingly lent the leader’s jersey and had to fight hard to get it back.
It was a rare occurrence, then, on stage six of the 2025 Tour de France, that Pogačar was happy for Mathieu van der Poel, the rider he gained the maillot jaune from him 24 hours previously, to jump back into the race lead. But only just – his Classics rival is in yellow by a single second.
Post-race ceremonies and media commitments don’t usually faze Pogačar – they’re factored into his daily race schedule such is his dominance – but this summer he is happier to give them up, at least for a short while. And it’s all part of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG plan to not be so offensive in the opening week of this year’s Tour; Pogačar has an advantage of 42 seconds on GC to Remco Evenepoel and 1:13 to Jonas Vingegaard largely thanks to the time trial, but the race will be settled in the Pyrenees and the Alps, not in the north.
“I don’t mind having the yellow jersey, but the goal was to spend as little [energy] as possible today,” the Slovenian told the media after the finish in Vire Normandie. “We still need some legs for the second and third week, so today was really good from us.”
His team’s sports manager Matxin Fernández indicated the previous day that Pogačar would prefer to keep hold of yellow, but that race circumstances might force their hand. That’s what happened on stage six.
“The start was super hard, incredibly fast, and we survived well for two hours, and then we were deciding if we go for the stage or not, but then we decided not to spend bullets,” Pogačar continued.
“We rode our pace and Nils [Politt] and Marc [Soler] did their job, as did the rest of the team. Then Visma came [to the front] the last two kickers, just riding all out. Maybe they had info that Van der Poel was suffering in front and losing time, and maybe they wanted to give me the yellow jersey.”
In the end, Pogačar relinquished yellow by the barest of margins, meaning that he drove to his night’s hotel in his team’s bus for only the 11th time in the 111 Tour stages he’s ridden; on the other 100 occasions he’s held a classification jersey and returned in a team’s car. His team-mates aren’t so used to his presence in July late afternoons.
There is a good chance that Pogačar will be back in yellow after stage seven, with the finish at Mûr de Bretagne expected to once again be contested by him, Van der Poel and Vingegaard. “Tomorrow is another good finish for me,” he said.
Whatever happens, Pogačar is just happy for one day at least to have done the rarest of things: give up a race lead. “If it was someone else in his [Van der Poel] position today maybe we wouldn’t be as happy as we are now. He will be happy with the yellow and I’m happy for him.”
