The landscapes of the Auvergne may be known for their cheeses, like Bleu d'Auvergne, Cantal, and Saint-Nectaire, but stage 10 of the Tour de France wasn’t a soft, creamy detour from the action, nor was it an afterthought on the menu succeeding the main dish. The stage was the entrée before the plat principal that will be served up in the mountains of the Pyrenees and Alps.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) will go into the first rest day confident that it will take more than what he was challenged with today for his rivals to nibble time off him. Despite the assertive persistence of Visma-Lease a Bike on lumpy parcours to Mont-Dore, Pogačar was as self-assured as ever, and at the finish was his usual ironic self, not shying away from a bullish assessment of his yellow jersey rivals.

"They were a bit annoying with all the attacks, so I decided to make a better attack,” said a wry Pogačar, talking about Visma’s series of attacks in the final hour of a demanding day in the Massif Central. He was not wrong. Pogačar’s stinging acceleration on the final 3.3km climb to Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy was by far the most powerful and devastating of the day.

But like his launch on stage four, on the first uphill battle of the overall contenders at this Tour, Visma’s leader Jonas Vingegaard was able to follow again. But importantly, Vingegaard could only follow and not attack. Logic suggests that if Vingegaard was capable of doing so, he would have attacked the world champion. Why else were Visma so combative, through Matteo Jorgenson and Sepp Kuss, if it were not to, firstly, isolate Pogačar from his teammates, and then secondly, drop him through an attack from the two-time champion?  

So, Visma’s aggressive approach wasn’t enough to drop Pogačar, but they did find success in the first part of their tactics. Jorgenson and Kuss’s accelerations certainly found chinks in UAE’s armour. A day after Pogačar lost his most important domestique, João Almeida, after he broke his rib on a chaotic stage seven, UAE were scrambling. Pavel Sivakov, recovering from an illness, was dropped early on. Nils Politt and Tim Wellens were solid in their pacing duties, but couldn’t last long as the roads pointed upwards. Marc Soler, Adam Yates and Jhonatan Narváez were all impressive in clawing back the moves of Jorgenson and Kuss. But this is a team that is now having to change course.

By today’s evidence, Pogačar must expect to be isolated in the high mountains of the Pyrenees, Provence and the Alps. Although hard, with 4,450m of elevation, stage 10 does not compare to what is to come. Visma’s Jorgenson, Kuss and the winner in Mont-Dore, Simon Yates, currently look like they will make it further up the colossal climbs to come than Adam Yates and Narváez.

But does this matter? The upcoming mountain stages could play out in a number of ways. It’s indeed likely that UAE will not have the resources required to make the race open and aggressive themselves, which will mean Pogačar will be forced to take a back seat. But holding back is something he can afford to do, he is 1:17 ahead of Vingegaard. Although it’s not necessarily in his nature, Pogačar can continue to follow the moves of Jorgenson and Vingegaard, biding his time until a summit finish, of which there are plenty to choose from, including some iconic climbs that he would surely love to nab a stage win atop. Visma will have to be wary of their maillot jaune challenge dripping slowly away, bonus second by bonus second, summit finish sprint by summit finish sprint.

However, another way the race could play out is the Visma 2022 to 2023 tactic of blowing up a stage. But even in this scenario, Pogačar currently looks like he would benefit the most. UAE’s depleted squad could almost be an unintentional trap, in which Visma send their troops over the top, only for them to be blasted away when Pogačar attacks. They would be playing with fire if they blew up the race, making it a two-up battle between the two main protagonists; the Tour triumph would very likely fall into the world champion’s hands.

Currently, the only way Pogačar seems like he could lose this Tour, is if he cracks like we have seen him do in the past, on the Col du Granon in 2022 and the Col de la Loze in 2023. He hasn’t shown any signs that this is likely, but with a team now on the back foot, the best rider in the race is going into the first rest day wary of what will be thrown at him; he experienced a taster of it on the roads of the Auvergne.