Tadej Pogacar does have a weak spot, according to main rival Geraint Thomas: "I think he might overestimate their ability sometimes"

Tadej Pogacar, so far, looks unbeatable at the Giro d'Italia when it comes to the fight for the pink jersey. This is not quite true according to his rivals however, and Geraint Thomas sees a trend which can be a weak spot in UAE Team Emirates' armour.

"His Achilles heel is the fact he's so strong and he wants to win, and his team also wants to win. It seems like they get a bit emotional with it," Thomas said in the Watts Occuring podcast. "All the rest of his team are normal bike riders. They'll have a good day, then the next day, they'll be not so good, whereas Pog's good all the time. I think he might overestimate their ability sometimes. I don't mean any disrespect there by saying that. They need to sort of look after those pennies, don't they?"

The leader of INEOS Grenadiers argues that UAE puts in a lot of work in the front of the peloton, not always necessarily. This has already been the case over the past years - most notably at the Tour de France. This year it could be argued that this was the case on stage 1 where Pogacar then lacked teammates to control the finale; stage 6 where the team controlled the breakaway but then decided to not bring them back in the final kilometers; and now in Thomas' words: stage 8 as well to Prati di Tivo (where the Slovenian did win the stage.

"They could have backed off if they wanted to. But because the break was just there – it was only at a minute and a half or something – they just rode and kept it within distance, and went for it. Why do you even need to do that?" Thomas questions.

Whilst Pogacar did win the stage, the experienced leader of INEOS adds in a friendly tone that he would prefer to have his team think long-term in the race. "Save the boys, because there's definitely big, big days to come, and there's going to be a point where they might need all hands on deck," he argues. "Or at least someone other than Majka as well to be there."