Tadej reached another milestone on stage 11 of the Tour de France, putting on the yellow jersey for the 30th time in his career. With this, he overtook Jonas Vingegaard (27) and Fabian Cancellara (29) in this year’s race. He’s been wearing the “maillot jaune” for nine days already in the 2024 edition. He also climbed to 12th place in the all-time ranking.
Tadej wanted to crown this achievement with a stage win on the extremely demanding 211-kilometer test in the Central Massif, where his team UAE Team Emirates again did an outstanding job. All day his teammates dictated the pace and controlled the break, then Tadej attacked on the climb to the Peyrol pass (Puy Mary) a good 31 kilometers before the finish line and remained alone in the front. He was caught by Jonas Vingegaard on the penultimate climb to Perthus, and the Dane later beat Tadej in the sprint for the stage win in Lioran.
“It was a very good day, our team did a great job. On Puy Mary I felt very good and I attacked, on the next climb Jonas was very strong and caught me. Now we see that it is a fair fight, that Jonas is also in great shape. He beat me, although my sprint was not bad after such a hard stage. It was a very challenging day, but I enjoyed it. May the Tour continue like this,” commented Tadej. He now leads 1:06 ahead of Remco Evenepoel, 1:14 ahead of Vingegaard and 2:15 ahead of Primož Roglič.
Although this time he lost the sprint and one second overall to Vingegaard, he is optimistic before the second half of the Tour. “It turned out that Jonas and I are very equal in terms of strength, I was stronger on the first climb, he on the second. He got the sprint, so chapeau to him for the win, but we’re very even. I have to defend the advantage I have until the Pyrenees, where much more will be revealed. Ahead of us are longer climbs and a different style of racing. During my preparations, I focused more on the real mountain stages,” Tadej is looking forward to racing in the Pyrenees this weekend.