Tadej Poga\u010dar has a vise grip on the 2026 Tour de France and shows no signs of letting go.<\/p>\n
The only hope at the Tour\u2019s halfway point is a repeat of the Col du Granon crisis. That\u2019s where Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma famously broke Poga\u010dar in 2022.<\/p>\n
The rider who cracked in the Alps four years ago isn\u2019t the same one wearing yellow today.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, in 2022, even though we had the strongest rider, we still lost the race,\u201d UAE sport manager Joxean Fern\u00e1ndez Matx\u00edn told Velo<\/em>. \u201cFrom that moment on, we realized there were many things we had to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside UAE Emirates-XRG, Granon became the starting point for a complete overhaul.<\/p>\n That\u2019s bad news for anyone else hoping to win this Tour.<\/p>\n Back-to-back Tour victories in 2020 and 2021 made it look easy. Many expected Poga\u010dar to rattle off five straight and then some.<\/p>\n Then Visma showed up and smashed them.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe Tadej\u2019s rivalry with Jonas has made him better. And it\u2019s made us, as a team, better too,\u201d Matx\u00edn said outside the UAE team bus. \u201cThat sporting rivalry with Visma has forced us to improve ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n The Granon collapse was a brutal wakeup call for Poga\u010dar and everyone inside the UAE bus.<\/p>\n That winter the team reviewed every part of its program, from training and nutrition to recovery and equipment.<\/p>\n Changes they made then are playing out across this 2026 Tour, where the remade version of Poga\u010dar and UAE are catching heat and even hearing boos for being too dominant.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you win a Tour with a very young rider, and then you win another one, you think it\u2019s perhaps easier than it really is. You get carried away a little by the situation without fully thinking it through,\u201d he said. \u201cWe realized there were many things we had to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n UAE expanded its performance staff, overhauled nutrition, improved cooling strategies, strengthened the squad, and refined every part of Poga\u010dar\u2019s preparation.<\/p>\n Vingegaard won again in 2023 after Poga\u010dar arrived undercooked following his Li\u00e8ge wrist fracture, but the changes were already in motion.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar is a wildly better rider than he was in 2022. This 2026 Tour is seeing Peak Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many factors that come into it,\u201d Poga\u010dar said when asked by Velo<\/em>. \u201cThe biggest change since that final collapse is mainly in my physical capacity. I am better than I was then, and mentally I have also grown. I have gained experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the start of 2024, he\u2019s only been beaten head-to-head in one-day races like Paris-Roubaix. He hasn\u2019t lost a stage race since the 2023 Tour.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest changes within the team has been in nutrition,\u201d he said. \u201cDuring this Tour de France, my body temperature is simply lower than it was in 2022 or in the Tours before that. There is more focus now.\u201d<\/p>\n So far in the 2026 Tour, Poga\u010dar already won three stages and packs a lead of 3:36 to Vingegaard.<\/p>\n With the Alps looming, it would take a major collapse like the Granon for the Slovenian to lose grip of yellow. The big question now has anyone else upped their game like UAE?<\/p>\n UAE also doubled down around its leader and opened the checkbook to make sure Poga\u010dar won\u2019t be exposed again.<\/p>\n In 2022, Visma was a better and deeper team when Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Wout van Aert \u2014 both in their respective primes \u2014 helped attack and then turn the screws on Poga\u010dar in the French Alps.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s almost impossible to isolate Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n Adam Yates and Brandon McNulty are top-shelf climbing domestiques<\/em>, and Isaac del Toro would be leading GC on almost any other team. Nils Politt and Florian Vermeersch add brawn for the flats, and Tim Wellens and Felix Gro\u00dfschartner cover everything else.<\/p>\n \u201cJonas and Visma pushed us to our limit,\u201d Matx\u00edn told Velo<\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s the mindset we\u2019re working with. We can\u2019t relax. Just because we\u2019re winning races doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019ll always keep winning.\u201d<\/p>\n Coming the Tour\u2019s final week, the memories of a Granon ambush remain the lone sliver of hope for every GC rival still standing.<\/p>\n Could Poga\u010dar still lose the yellow jersey? Absolutely.<\/p>\n A crash, illness or simple bad luck can derail any Tour de France. Poga\u010dar said he nearly hit a bid\u00f3n in the feed zone the other day at 60kph.<\/p>\n But if everyone is waiting for another Granon, they\u2019re chasing a version of Tadej Poga\u010dar that no longer exists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/pogacar-tour-de-france-granon-crack-rival-alps-yellow-jersey\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Z8B_7634.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated July 17, 2026 06:29AM Tadej Poga\u010dar has a vise grip on the 2026 Tour de France and shows no signs of letting go. The only hope at the Tour\u2019s halfway point is a repeat of the Col du Granon crisis. That\u2019s where Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma famously broke Poga\u010dar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2048691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2048691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2048691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2048691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2048691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Jonas made us better\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"Tadej](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Z8A_3857-720x503.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Poga\u010dar says the biggest gains weren\u2019t tactical<\/h2>\n
UAE rewrite superteam rulebook<\/h2>\n
![\"Tadej](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Q4A6012-720x480.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")