Jai Hindley: Pogacar and Vingegaard are racing smarter at the Tour de France

Jai Hindley’s day in the yellow jersey already feels like a long time ago. The Australian, winner of last year’s Giro d’Italia, took command of the Tour de France with a neat ambush in the Pyrenees but the battle for that jersey has since developed into an apparent two-way tussle.

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) have sailed away, heading into the second week with just 17 seconds between them but more than two minutes back to Hindley, who’s currently best of ‘the rest’.

Hindley refused to place a ceiling on his ambitions in what’s left of this race, but nevertheless acknowledged he and a host of others are practically involved in a different race.

“Those two have shown they’re really in a league of their own,” he said during a press conference on Monday’s rest day, suggesting they’re harder to beat than ever.

“They’re super strong, and they’ve also changed the way they race, as teams, compared to the previous two years. I think they’re riding a lot smarter, a bit more conservative, as opposed to a couple of years ago when they were maybe going for stages when they didn’t really need to. Both those two guys are riding really strong but also really smart.”

Hindley enjoyed one day in the yellow jersey and initially tracked the big two on the Col du Tourmalet before being forced to relent and forced to hand over the jersey to Vingegaard. He was best of the rest on the finish at Cauterets but lost that mantle on Sunday’s steep finish on the Puy de Dome, where he struggled but limited his losses to key podium rival Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) to 23 seconds.

“It was like a silent death,” he said, referring to the blocking of fans in the final 4km. “I didn’t feel super great. I just tried to pace myself instead of holding onto the lead group and completely exploding.”

Pacing is the name of the game

Pacing, it seems, is the name of the game for Hindley in what’s left of this Tour de France. He may have grabbed yellow with an early flourish but by nature he’s more of a long-game player.

“For me, generally in Grand Tours I come into my own and find my best legs later in the race and in the third week,” he said.

“It was a new challenge for me, coming here with the hard stages already in Bilbao. Being in good form in the first week is not something I normally do. Normally I come in a bit underdone and get better throughout. I hope that the trend continues and I still come good in the last half of the race.

“For me personally, I’ve gone all out when I’ve had to and been conservative when I could be, and that’s really important. I just tried to pace my efforts each day because I know there’s still a long way to go.”

Hindley picked out Sunday’s stage 15 to Saint-Gervais as a key outing of the second week, while underlining the less obvious danger of the intermediate stages. The final week will kick off with the “crucial” stage 16 time trial and the “monster” stage 17 finish over the Col de la Loze. That’s when Hindley should, in theory, should come into his own, but he’s refusing to sketch a clear picture of how he wants his Tour to pan out.

Not putting any limits on himself, but also not putting any pressure on himself, he apologetically reached for “that old chestnut” of taking things ‘day by day’, but also spoke with genuine enthusiasm about just how much he is enjoying his Tour de France debut.

“I’m just riding my own race. I haven’t put any crazy expectations on myself, saying I want to win the race from day one. I’m just here to do my best for the team, do the best GC result I can,” he said.

“I did everything I could leading in, with the preparation, training, races, diet, nutrition - I really did everything I could to be here in the best possible shape to perform and I’ll continue to try and do that. I’m not too focused on the end result at the moment. I’m taking each day as it comes.

“I’m just enjoying it as well. It’s my first Tour and the atmosphere is next level. It’s always been a dream of mine just to pin a number on so to come here and be competitive is pretty cool for this kid from Perth.”