Adam Yates: We want to keep the ball rolling into the Dauphiné and Tour de France

After a successful outing at the Tour de Romandie earlier this spring Adam Yates and his UAE Team Emirates squad turn their attention to the Criterium du Dauphiné. The Tour de France warm-up race starts on Sunday with an undulating stage between Chambon-sur-Lac and Chambon-sur-Lac. On the eve of the race GCN caught up with the British climber to talk about the Dauphiné, Tour and Tadej Pogačar.

Yates made the move to UAE Team Emirates at the start of the year, and while his early season was dented with a heavy crash and some bad luck the 30-year-old has also enjoyed some major highlights. A stage and third overall at the UAE Tour started the ball rolling before another stage and the overall title were impressively sealed at the Tour Romandie in April.

The last few weeks have been spent at altitude in Sierra Nevada with his teammates, and Sunday represents the start of a block of racing that will stretch right through until the end of the Tour de France in late July. 

“After Romandie I had a bit of time off. Then I slowly started to build towards the big goals of the season. It was super nice to win at Romandie after some back luck in Catalunya and Tirreno. It’s not easy to change teams and still keep performing at a high level but for me I’m super happy because the team has really trusted me at every race that I’ve gone to. That’s made it a lot easier for me, and I just try my best at every race that I go to,” Yates told GCN.

The Dauphiné route is back-ended with tough mountain stages but a 31.1km time trial on stage 4 could dampen Yates’ GC prospects. His time trialing has certainly improved in recent years and he finished sixth in the long TT at the race back in 2019. According to Yates this year’s TT route is not as favourable as the one he raced in 2019 but he heads into the event with his confidence high and the pressure off.

“I’m just going to put my head down and try my best,” he said.“For me personally, I don’t feel like there’s a lot of pressure. I’ve been building for a while and my legs have been getting better and better. This is just another race to go to and we want to do well as a team. We want to keep the ball rolling. It’s not a bad course but the TT doesn’t really suit me. I’ll probably lose quite a bit of time there and I’ve not been able to do as much training on the TT bike as I would like but the form is coming. If I can be up there fighting for wins, then that would be good. At this race it’s pretty simple in that we’ve all come from a camp in Sierra, we’ve got a really good atmosphere so without any pressure we’re going to try our best and try and win.”

Competing for the GC in the Dauphiné is likely to mean battling with the defending Tour de France champion and rival, Jonas Vinvegaard (Jumbo-Visma). The Dane is also using the Dauphiné as a stepping stone towards the Tour de France, and just like Yates, has spent the last few weeks at altitude. The startlist is stacked with potential contenders but Yates does have the versatility and the team to mount a positive assault.“I’ve not looked at the start list but obviously I know Vingegaard is coming. He’s been up in Sierra but I don’t know what his condition is like. Obviously he’s going to treat it like we are in that he’s trying to find his racing legs and take a step forward.”The larger goal, however, remains the Tour de France. Yates was ninth in the race last year despite contracting COVID in the build-up and then getting sick during the race. One could argue that he still has unfinished business with the race given how well he performed last year despite those health hurdles but he’s fully committed to supporting team leader Tadej Pogačar throughout the month of July. Interestingly enough, the pair have yet to combine together in a race since Yates’ move from Team Ineos, with the Tour slated as their first paired outing.

“It’s pretty obvious that my role is going to be centred around helping Tadej. Step-by-step we’re getting better as a team and we’re building towards the same goal,” he said.

“Last year wasn’t perfect and I had COVID in Suisse, which was ten days before the Tour. That affected me quite badly and then I got sick during the Tour as well. This year though it’s not about me, it’s about the boss, and I’m sure we’ll do some special things together. For the next few weeks it’s about building towards the Tour, not making any mistakes.”

We’ll be showing live and on-demand coverage of all eight stages of this year’s Criterium du Dauphine. Head over to GCN+ now to check the start times of each broadcast so that you don’t miss out on a moment of the action! As always, territory restrictions will apply.