Greig Leach

I was watching the peloton on the penultimate climb up the Col du Noyer looking for a good image to paint about the top three on GC all just riding together as the real racing happened up the road. I forgot for a second just who had on the Maillot Jaune. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) loves to race, and race aggressively, so he wasn't content to just ride out the remaining kilometers of the stage. So, off he went. I might not have been ready for it, but both Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) were. Pogacar did get a sizable gap over the top of the climb, but the other two got together to chase him down the other side of the mountain. As they started up the Superdevoluy to the finish, Pogacar went again. He got a gap on Vingegaard at first, but he couldn't drop Evenepoel. In the end, Evenepoel dropped him and clawed back ten seconds on the Maillot Jaune. Conversely, Vingegaard was able to close back in and limited his losses to two seconds. The question is, "Did Pogacar just waste a lot of energy" and more importantly, will it come back to bite him in the remaining four stages of this Tour?