After sprinting to victory in Thursday's Tour de France stage, Dane Kasper Asgreen showed most delight as he talked of countryman Jonas Vingegaard "thriving under pressure" in defence of the overall title.
Asgreen won flat stage 18 as a long range escape edged a fast-closing peloton to the line at Bourg-en-Bresse in a white-knuckle finale.
Overall leader Vingegaard retained his commanding 7min 35sec advantage ahead of Sunday's finish on a day that Asgreen stole some of the limelight.
He won as the chasing pack mistimed their pursuit of a four-man breakaway by less than a second.
Asgreen showed his most visible joy when talking of Vingegaard's grace under pressure.
"What Jonas has done coming here as defending Tour de France champion is a different kind of pressure, but he's thrived with this pressure," said the 28-year-old.
"He seems super confident and relaxed and he's been that way since Bilbao on day one," he said.
Vingegaard, who raced under the radar on his way to the 2022 title, came into this Tour as the man to beat and has crushed the opposition as he has built a wide margin lead with only three stages to ride.
"As a fellow Dane, I always hoped he was going to come away with a victory and if he stays on his bike, he's not quite there yet but it looks like it could be his Tour de France again this year," Asgreen concluded.
Vingegaard also spoke warmly of Asgreen.
"I'm very happy to see Kasper winning again. We speak every day during the stage, as do all the Danes. It's nice to have countrymen around," said the Jumbo-Visma man.
On Thursday, as the Tour returned to flat terrain, three members of a four-man escape group crossed the line just metres ahead of the elite sprinters.
Dutchman Pascal Eenkhoorn of Lotto-Dstny was second and Norwegian Jonas Abrahamsen of Uno-X was third.
Their escape companion Belgian Victor Campenaerts, who had ridden hard to give team-mate Eenkhoorn a winning chance, was engulfed by the peloton at the line, showing what a close call it was after a 20km chase fell short.
Asgreen said he and his breakaway partners combined in an unspoken alliance of fortune that delivered the win for only one of them.
"We raced the end like a team time-trial," said Asgreen, part of the Danish team time-trial world champions of 2018.
"We realised that if we all committed we could pull it off," he said.
"I couldn't have done it without the others. Even a small group can manage to cheat the sprinters," said Asgreen, who broke away to win the Tour of Flanders in 2021.
The victory was the first for the Soudal-Quick-Step team on this Tour after the Belgian outfit had enjoyed years of dominance with riders such as Julian Alaphilippe and Mark Cavendish.
"I'm really happy we won't be leaving the Tour without a win," he said.
- Pogacar feeling better -
Second-placed Tadej Pogacar seemed to have digested his crushing defeat from yesterday.
"I think the whole peloton came to see me to try and cheer me up today, so I'm feeling much better," said Pogacar.
At the end of the previous day's stage, the two-time champion sat gazing at the ground after losing six minutes and any realistic hopes of winning the Tour.
"Also looking back all those fans on the mountain encouraging me really meant something to me, because I wasn't winning."
The winner of all four previous sprints on this Tour, Belgian Alpecin rider Jasper Philipsen, was fourth on the day.
Organisers were keen to offer the sprinters a flat run here after four Alpine tests, even taking a tunnel through a mountain rather than climbing over it.
Philipsen has dominated the bunch sprints on this Tour although two of his four triumphs were garnered with some wobbly manoeuvres that had to be validated by race officials.
dmc/pb/nr
