"Maybe he left out too much on the road yesterday" - Tadej Pogacar rues missed chance for Van der Poel rematch despite winning on Mur-de-Bretagne

Tadej Pogacar has his second stage win of the 2025 Tour de France and the 101st victory of his career, powering impressively to the stage 7 success on Friday afternoon atop the Mur-de-Bretagne. Having dropped the Maillot Jaune Mathieu van der Poel en route, Pogacar also regains control of the race lead.

"I'm super happy with the win today, we did it almost perfectly," reflected Pogacar in his post-stage interview afterwards, noting how the only disappointment for UAE Team Emirates - XRG was a late crash that took down the Slovenian's second in command João Almeida. "I hope João is ok, if he is then it’s a perfect day, and if he’s not, then this victory is ok. I just wish he’s ok."

Pre-stage, the finishing battle on the Mur-de-Bretagne was billed as the latest showdown between Pogacar and Van der Poel. As mentioned already though, that's not quite how things panned out, as the Yellow Jersey cracked relatively early on the climb. "Me and Mathieu both know this finish very well, we have good memories here. We wanted the same, to win on this iconic climb. Maybe he left too much on the road yesterday, so we couldn’t have a rematch," Pogacar rues. "For me, today went like we planned, and the win is amazing."

With Van der Poel dropping out of contention though, Pogacar gets the double bonus of a stage win and the Maillot Jaune back on his shoulders. The three-time Tour winner now leads the GC by 54 seconds ahead of nearest challenger Remco Evenepoel. "It was a hot day, so we spent a lot of energy pulling it out. It was a super fast day too. We had a plan, we stuck to it, the team led me out to the bottom of the climb. Jhonatan Narvaéz did a reality super job to keep it under control. It was perfect for me," he concludes. "Back in yellow, now let’s go for two more easy days."