Tadej Pogachar can't wait to race the Tour de France. He has trained at altitude, scouted the mountains, avoided COVID-19 infection, and proved his aptitude for racing by winning the Tour de Slovenia. And now his youthful enthusiasm has him itching to race.

"I can't wait to get started. I'm excited and I'm looking forward to getting started," Pogachar said at the final press conference on Thursday afternoon.

"I'm looking forward to the start of the Tour de France again. I want to do my best. The Tour is the biggest race on the calendar, so I'm very happy to be at the start and to be fighting for the title."

"I think this Tour de France will be great for the riders, for the people on the road, and for the people watching on TV. For us, the Tour will be brutal some days, fun some days, and hard from the start."

Pogachar will also challenge the time trial specialists, as he will shorten the time of his overall rivals in Friday's time trial. The early start time of 5:05 p.m. local time was chosen to limit the risk of a shower.

The Tour will climb into the Alps and Pyrenees, with the final time trial to decide the outcome. On Thursday, he said he is not afraid to take on race leaders and their responsibilities.

"I will never say no to the yellow jersey," Pogachar said. "I would never say no to the yellow jersey. When you have the chance, everybody wants to take it. The podium, the press conference, it's all part of the yellow.

Pogachar won the Tour for the first time in 2020 in the final time trial, setting up a new era in 2021. Worryingly for his rivals, Pogachar is confident that he is still getting better and that his UAE Team Emirates team is stronger than ever and can help him win again.

"I think I'm in better shape than last year, not that much different. Every year I feel a little bit better, but we will soon see if that is true or not."

"I will do my best to win this race. I am ready for any attack."

Pogachar seemed confident, but he remained humble and grounded despite his €6 million salary and despite being compared to Eddy Merckx.

"My experience has given me more confidence. My training is good and I have a good team.

"Still, you never know what will happen in a race. Even if you are in good shape, one bad day can change everything. I want to run good legs every day."

"Cycling is not science fiction and you have to fight as hard as you can to win. Everyone has weaknesses. No day is perfect. I hope no bad days happen in the Tour and I want to get through the difficult moments. That's normal in cycling, especially in the Grand Tours.

If Pogachar wins his third consecutive Tour this year, he will join an ever more exclusive club of multiple Grand Tour winners. Only Luison Bovet, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain, and Chris Froome have done it in the past.

Nevertheless, Pogachar is only 23 years old and has little time to look back and reflect on his place in cycling history. He looks forward to even greater success.

"It's hard to look back because so much is happening in my life right now. I just try to enjoy the moment and enjoy the bike. We'll see what the future holds.

Pogachar is not overly concerned about the recent COVID-19 incident in the peloton or the tense first week of racing in Denmark and northern France.

"We are really strong as a team, we don't need to be aggressive or defensive.

"We do our job, go to the front, and fight for position. We are ready for that. We don't need to worry." [Pogachar is not concerned about getting caught up in the jumbo-wisma sandwich of Primos Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard.

"I don't like to name who is the strongest. There is a lot of competition, a lot of strong riders and important moments in three weeks," he suggested.

"All the teams and all the riders will be at 100% for the race. We are one of the strongest teams so we don't need to worry about our rivals, we should focus on ourselves."