Tour de France: Pogacar admits wrist not fully healed as Vingegaard resists mind games

Tadej Pogacar has revealed his injured wrist still needs more time to heal, but the UAE Team Emirates star remains confident of his Tour de France chances.

Pogacar was in imperious form this year before breaking his wrist in a crash during the Liege–Bastogne–Liege at the end of April, causing severe disruption to his preparations for the tour, which starts in Bilbao, Spain on Saturday.

The 24-year-old Slovenian returned to competition last week by winning the time trial and road race at the National Championships but the Tour de France – raced over three weeks and 3339.5km against the best cyclists in the world – is a different proposition altogether.

“The wrist is not completely fine,” Pogacar told a news conference on Thursday, two days before the first stage in Bilbao.

“I feel OK on the bike but the wrist is not back to full mobility, 60, 70 per cent. I did a scan on Monday and two out of three bones have healed but the scaphoid still needs more time.”

Pogacar said only full speed racing will determine whether he can give his best.

“We will see in the race itself," he said. "I had good training in the last couple of weeks but I didn’t race normally. Normally before the Tour I would race the Dauphine. I think the legs are good, the mentality is super good, I hope I’m ready.”

Pogacar, who won the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021, was denied a hat-trick of titles by Team Jumbo-Visma's Jonas Vingegaard, settling for second behind the Dane.

Once again, the two are expected to battle for the general classification yellow jersey, and while Pogacar insisted Vingegaard is the big race favourite, he is fully focused on himself, not on his main rival.

“I have my performance in my mind, I try to focus on our racing as it’s not