"Maybe Visma wanted to give me the yellow jersey" - Tadej Pogacar caught by surprise by rival team on tricky Tour day

Tadej Pogacar has spent today in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, but just as quickly as he obtained it he's also given it away to Mathieu van der Poel. However this was only by 1 second, and the Slovenian didn't understand what Team Visma | Lease a Bike were up to on stage 6 which finished in Vire Normandie.

"At the end, Visma wanted… Yeah, I don't know what they were trying to do. They were going fast, so we just followed. The start and the first two hours were very, very tough. Really incredibly fast," the Slovenian admitted.

The World Champion and UAE came under attack from a Visma that had Wout van Aert, Tiesj Benoot and Victor Campenaerts all try to get in the breakaway; Matteo Jorgenson attack to which Pogacar had to respond directly instead of waiting for the team to do the chasing; and lastly Simon Yates getting in the front group.

"We survived those two hours well, and then we decided whether or not we were going for the stage win. Then we decided not to use our bullets and rode at our own pace. Nils [Politt] and Marc [Soler], and the rest of the team, did their job".

The team had Nils Politt in the head of the peloton all day but did not chase hard so as to let the gap grow and allow Mathieu van der Poel to take the yellow jersey, hence taking away the responsibility to lead the peloton and also reduce post-stage ceremonies - which in the long-term can aid with the recovery process.

"Then Visma came." The Dutch team, perhaps in an effort to keep Pogacar in the race lead and not allow him this breather, pushed the pace quite hard in the final kilometers and reduced the gap substantially. Pogacar lost the race lead by a mere second.

"They went full throttle on the last two kickers. Maybe they had information that Van der Poel was losing time at the front and was struggling. Maybe Visma wanted to give me the yellow jersey today," he wonders.

"But in the end, Mathieu beat me by a second, so hats off to him. It was a fantastic performance from him today. The early breakaway did really well at the front today. All credit to them." Tomorrow on the Mur-de-Bretagne however it may change hands once again, taking into consideration specially how the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider looked on the final kilometers of the stage.

"I don't mind having the yellow jersey. But as I said, the goal was to expend as little energy as possible today. Tomorrow is another good finish for me. After that, we also need the legs for the second and third weeks. What we did today was very good of us."