Neilson Powless came to the Tour de France as one of the most prominent stage hunters, however after six days of racing the EF Education-EasyPost rider finds himself second in the overall classification just behind Tadej Pogacar.
At the end of the day Powless shared: “I’m thankful to be in this team. Everybody was committed to taking yellow. It’s a really cool feeling. We executed our plan to perfection. It is very disappointing that it didn’t pay off in end, but I’m still second on GC. It is just a different guy in front of me.”
With Wout van Aert part of the day's breakaway, and then later dropped when he was eventually caught by the peloton, it gave Powless the provisional lead. One he hoped would take him to the yellow jersey at the end of the day, but the win from Tadej Pogacar and the bonus seconds that come along took the Slovenian to the lead of the Tour.
In a VeloNews column he said that "looking ahead, my job is pretty simple. I just need to conserve my energy as much as possible and then essentially race with the favorites". What his role will be is yet unknown, as he could play a part of GC contention the way the race is currently panning out, but fighting for stage wins later on in the race remains the most likely possibility.
"To be honest, that feels like a pretty big privilege. If that plan changes in the coming days, that’s fine. I’ll adapt but I’m going to take pride in racing with the top riders," he concluded.
“I’m thankful to be in this team. Everybody was committed to taking yellow. It’s a really cool feeling. We executed our plan to perfection. It is very disappointing that it didn’t pay off in end, but I’m still second on GC. It is just a different guy in front of me.” - @NPowless
