"On the bus we decided to play it a bit more defensive today... obviously Tadej didn't listen" - Adam Yates stunned as Pogacar triumphs again at 2024 Tour de France

Tadej Pogacar's right hand man, Adam Yates has had a very important role at the 2024 Tour de France and the Brit helped his leader secure another stage win this Sunday. After a busy and tiresome day on stage 14, the Brit has revealed that the initial plan for stage 15 was to ride more defensive.

Following his late attack as a satellite rider on stage 14, that Pogacar would bridge across to en route to the stage win, Yates admitted he never knows what his team leader is going to do. With this latest stage win, Yates again was left flabbergasted at his leader's instinctive and relentlessly attacking racing.

"On the bus we decided to play it a bit more defensive today and just see what the other teams wanted to do," Yates begins his post-stage reflection in conversation with ITV Sport. "On the last couple of times, we've always been the first team to control and take it up, but yeah, he obviously didn't listen did he!"

To be fair to Pogacar, he wasn't the first of the GC group to attack, that honour fell to Jonas Vingegaard. After following the Dane for 5km, Pogacar made his own attack at just over 5km to go, leaving his rival behind and riding clear off to a stage victory by over a minute, extending his advantage in the general classification to over three minutes in the process.

"When I got dropped, Matteo Jorgenson was going super, super fast and if he's got his teammates doing that, he (Vingegaard ed.) must have been feeling really good," Yates assesses. "He looked good, but it's a long climb. I know it quite well and it's long and hard so it's fantastic. Last year we were scrapping for seconds and now we've got a couple of minutes."