Another Tour de France stage, another Tadej Pogačar win. The Slovenian took his fourth victory of this Tour so far, putting him at 25 career stage wins, pulling him level with Andre Leduq for fourth-most in race history.
Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates have said publicly that they're going to try to win as many stages as possible. But that's made life difficult for the breakaway hopefuls at the Tour. After 14 stages, breaks have succeeded just four times, and all on days that threaded a narrow needle of not flat enough to be sprint finishes and not hard enough for Pogačar to win. So, the main question of the day:
Are Pogačar and UAE strangling breakaways at the Tour?
Tobias Halland Johannessen, who is hovering outside the top 10 on the general classification, said after the finish today that he approached Pogačar at the start to get his read on the tactics. "I asked if he believed in the breakaway today and he said, 'maybe not'," Johannessen recounted at the finish. He went in the break anyway along with twin brother Anders and a pile of other hopefuls on a day that was hard but didn't have to be a GC day.
Not so long ago, a break of 20+ riders had a very good chance of at least one or two surviving to the finish. But on any day where Pogačar could potentially win, UAE keeps a tight leash on the attackers, holding them to just a couple minutes' advantage. And so it was today.
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