Tour de France patron Tadej Pogacar is like basketball great Michael Jordan, according to his team principal Mauro Gianetti.
Gianetti was speaking after the world champion had stormed back into the Tour de France yellow jersey with a crushing victory on stage six from Pau to Gavarnie-Gedre in the Pyrenees on Thursday.
"It's just a pure talent. It's like when Michael Jordan was just making the moves that the others were not able to," UAE Emirates-XRG chief Gianetti told reporters.
The four-time Tour winner said that he had admired Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt and Serbian tennis beast Novak Djokovic when he was growing up rather than the American hoop star.
"Michael Jordan, maybe I'm too young for him, but Usain Bolt, for example, when I saw him being so dominant, it was crazy to see," said Pogacar.
"He was like the top. It was really cool to see his mentality also.
"Or now, the last year's Djokovic's mentality in tennis, this is just another level."
This was Pogacar's 23rd Tour stage victory and his second this year, allowing him to reclaim the yellow jersey that he had willingly given up two days ago.
The 27-year-old Slovenian said his team had been hugely motivated for Thursday's stage straight after the previous day's race when his team-mate Tim Wellens was already starting to "visualise" the day's tactics.
"Already yesterday on the bus after the finish (there) was really big hype for today," said Pogacar.
"We were like, okay, let's go all in. What's the worst that can happen?
"We can blow out a little bit, but we knew that we are a strong team, so we said: 'we commit to one plan and whatever happens, happens'."
Pogacar himself was so pumped up that he could barely sleep.
"I woke up way too early today, 7:00 in the morning. I couldn't sleep long because I was so excited for today."
At breakfast, his team-mates "were all hyped, carbo-loading, eating good breakfast, having good coffees.
"Then we went to the bus, to the start, and it was just good energy, good vibe.
"I don't know how to explain, the energy there was perfect."
Behind Pogacar, Vingegaard said he had not had his best day as he trailed in 2min 38sec behind the Slovenian.
Although Pogacar attacked on the punishing Tourmalet climb, he earned most of his advantage over Vingegaard on the speedy 19km descent and then the long, shallow 19km rise to the finish.
"Not my best day, I'm obviously disappointed, I have to be," said Vingegaard, the Tour champion in 2022 and 2023.
"I still believe in myself, my legs will get better throughout the race, the fight is not over."
Pogacar said that Vingegaard probably lost time on the descent because he had pushed harder on the climb.
"Maybe today he was a little bit over the limit on the Tourmalet climb," said the reigning champion.
"When you're out of your zone, it's hard to go downhill.
"You do small mistakes or less accelerations from the corners.
"For me, I still had this really good acceleration out of the hairpins."
Behind the pair, the battle for third place was razor tight.
Pogacar's Mexican team-mate Isaac Del Toro took four bonus seconds on the line for finishing third and leapfrogged Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel up to third in the standings.
But there are just 33 seconds separating five riders including Spaniard Juan Ayuso, Frenchman Paul Seixas and German Florian Lipowitz.
"We knew that Tadej was a cut above the rest, that's not new to anyone," said Ayuso, who is fifth but just seven seconds behind Del Toro.
He said he'd had been through a "rough patch" and was relieved to have made it into the group chasing the final podium position so he could "keep fighting" for another day.
bc/dmc
