Berliner Tageblatt - Tour de France: Who is saying what

"I haven't won it yet, and I won't believe I've won it until I cross the line in the lead at Nice on the final day. But I think I finally cracked him."

-- Race leader Tadej Pogacar on his 3min 9sec over defending champion Jonas Vingegaard.

"Maybe some people don't understand our tactics but that's their problem."

Vingegaard scoffing at Pogacar's assertion that he was scared.

"It's only a few months ago my loved ones feared I was going to die," Vingegaard after edging Pogacar in a stage-11 mano-a-mano. The Dane suffered a collapsed lung and fractures in April.

"It's a good sign."

-- Mauro Gianetti, UAE Team Principal after Pogacar struck back by beating Marco Pantani's 1998 time to Plateau de Beille. The Slovenian is on course to complete the first Giro-Tour since Pantani, also in 1998. The Italian was later banned for doping.

"We have seen these past two years that Pogacar is capable of a bad day, maybe that will happen for a third year. I won't give up. I believe I can still win and I will do everything I can."

-- Vingegaard sends Pogacar a warning.

"You got the feeling they wanted a mano-a-mano like the good old days, so that later they could fight it out between themselves."

-- Bernard Thevenet, who dethroned his nemesis Eddy Merckx as Tour champion in 1975, was the first to propose an increasingly popular theory that Pogacar and Vingegaard conspired to distance Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic.

"Everybody knows the first two guys are on another level. It's been relentless from kilometre zero but I haven't panicked and just rode my own rhythm,"

-- Third-placed Remco Evenepoel.

"Maybe the European teams may take more Africans. For now I'm the only one and I wish there were more black riders in the peloton."

-- Eritrea's Biniam Girmay after winning his third Tour de France stage on Thursday.

"I hope he's riding behind me."

-- Evenepoel feeling uneasy that veteran Geraint Thomas is continuing to ride despite Covid-19 symptoms. Evenepoel has worn a mask since the start of the Tour. Last season he caught Covid and had to quit the Giro while in the lead.

C.Meier--BTB