Pavel Sivakov on Team Visma's discourse: "They've been playing the victim role since the start of the Tour de France"

UAE Team Emirates built up the plan to attack yesterday's stage into Le Lioran and fully committed to it. Pavel Sivakov was an instrumental part of this plan and did a lot of important work, but was not shocked to see Jonas Vingegaard being able to match Tadej Pogacar and points out that Team Visma | Lease a Bike have constantly been playing the underdog card.

"We wanted to make it tough for the toughest climb of the day, that's why we rode so fast. Tadej knew he could gain time there, but also on the descent," Sivakov said in words to Cyclism'Actu. "However, Jonas was very strong and was able to return. They've been playing the victim role since the start of the Tour de France, but we're not really going along with that. We've seen once again that he's a formidable opponent for yellow."

Sivakov did work on the Col de Neronne where the peloton was reduced to about 30 riders and then also rode in the front for a few kilometers on Puy Mary, before Adam Yates took over and the Slovenian launched his attack. The yellow jersey, despite having over a minute's lead, clearly wants to enter the high mountains with more and saw an opportunity here with an explosive stage that had plenty bonus seconds in the final kilometers. But on the Col de Perthus Vingegaard put on an incredibly effort that closed the gap to the yellow jersey. "We're not surprised, because he's won the Tour for two years."

At the end of the stage, he also won the stage and even took one second on Pogacar in the overall classification, effectively deeming UAE's plan a failure, specially taking into consideration Juan Ayuso cracked on the day and almost fell out of the Top10. "We would have liked to have taken time, but it is what it is," he concluded.