Tour de France: Tadj Pojacar and Adam Yates to be joint UAE frontrunners – ‘Injury not quite over’

General manager Mauro Gianetti has revealed that Tadeji Pogacar and Adam Yates will be joint team leaders for the Tour de France in the UAE.

Yates, who finished fourth in the 2016 Tour de France, joined the UAE from Ineos Grenadiers last September.

“We really had no choice. Tadeji spent five weeks without road training. There are no miracles in cycling. You have to rack up the miles.

“He’s worked so hard and we have a lot of faith in him, but we’re not sure about anything.

“He won the Slovenian Nationals [both road and time trial] They won it in brilliant fashion. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be 100 percent ready on Saturday.

“The injury is not over yet. We have to be careful because his preparations have been scaled back. A month ago we were still not sure about anything.

“If we see the glass half full, we can say he’s going to be on tour in a fresher state. But the opposition this year has been very strong.”

Yates joined the Emirates with the clear knowledge that Pogacar would remain the team’s true overall leader, but the Englishman proved to be farsighted, saying in December that the team now “needs to be sick.” or backup in case of injury”.

The 30-year-old said: “There is a superstar, and then there are many young people who have great potential and achieved a lot. But you can’t just have one leader all the time.

“Now you need your backup and who knows if somebody gets hurt or sick and they need me to do something, then I can step up.

“There are a lot of good riders out there. So, like at Ineos, we always have two or three options when we do a Grand Tour because someone might get sick or get hurt, [maybe] Infected with Covid-19.

“Today, it’s foolish to spend so much money on passengers without a second option.”

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