winning the stage in a damp Valence<\/a>, but also by taking vital points at the day’s intermediate sprint, making his grip on green all but insurmountable. <\/p>\nPogacar could have avoided that being the case, but at the intermediate sprint on Wednesday, he was nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n
If he were to win all three jerseys at this Tour, he would be the first to do so since the great Eddy Merckx in 1969.<\/p>\n
But should the green jersey be held by a sprinter, as is customary?<\/p>\n
Luke Rowe, ex-lieutenant to the likes of Mark Cavendish, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, advised Pogacar to “be greedy”.<\/p>\n
“If I was him, I’d take everything I can,” Rowe said on TNT Sports’ The Breakaway.<\/p>\n
“It might not be a very popular opinion. He could have rolled through the intermediate sprint in the top 11, zero risk, zero effort. It was a conscious decision to not do that.<\/p>\n
“He gave away points for free – I wouldn’t do it. I’d take it, I’d be greedy.<\/p>\n
“You never know when that moment is going to come when you stop winning.<\/p>\n
“Cav [Cavendish] tried to give a stage or two away during his career to [Mark] Renshaw, tried to give one away to [Michael] Morkov, and then it took him two or three years to win his final stage and take that record.<\/p>\n
“You never know when you’re going to stop winning. As ruthless as it sounds, really take all you can, because the time will come when you stop winning, and you look back and you go ‘I could have had that’.”<\/p>\n
Rowe added: “If it was so easy to take [the points], then why isn’t he? Is he just trying to be the nice guy, is he trying to keep a good image? Why?”<\/p>\n
![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-028d9876-f469-452c-b732-4700985a1af9-85-2560-1440.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Watch: Milan avoids crash chaos to ‘grab hold of green’ with dominant win<\/p>\n
Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n
Sprinting doyen Robbie McEwen suggested another possible theory.<\/p>\n
“I think he’s just sticking to the original goal coming to the Tour: win the Tour de France, win the yellow jersey,” the Australian said.<\/p>\n
“When it comes to the green jersey, it was never part of the plan, I think they [UAE] are just sticking to what they came to do and not taking any risks.<\/p>\n
“Had he taken points at the intermediate sprint and then started thinking a bit more about it, ‘Maybe I’ll just ride further towards the front when we come to the finish, maybe sneak in a few points in the top 20’, ‘Oh there’s a big crash at one kilometre to go and Tadej Pogacar’s in it’.<\/p>\n
“You don’t want him taking risks like that, so maybe just say ‘we’re not interested, stay back, stay out of it, stay safe.”<\/p>\n
Pogacar faces an Alpine D-day on Thursday as his GC contest with Jonas Vingegaard (Visma Lease a Bike) hits the high mountains.<\/p>\n
![\"picture\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image-e3f3194e-5eb8-4d81-aad6-24a468cfbe4e-85-2560-1440.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
TDF flashback: ‘I’m gone, I’m dead’ – Pogacar cracks on Col de la Loze in 2023<\/p>\n
Video credit: TNT Sports<\/p>\n
Watch and stream the Tour’s Queen Stage live on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where do you stand on cycling politics? Namely, with Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG) so dominant in this year’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,8782,6549,12183,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-19033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france","tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}