By Julian Brito

LOUDONVILLE, France, July 18 (Reuters) - Tadej Pogačar has no intention of giving away any freebies to his rivals in this year's Tour de France, even though he has dominated the general classification yellow jersey and left his rivals gasping for breath behind him in the mountains.

After his brilliant fourth stage win of the Tour de France on Friday, the UAE Team XRG leader rejected the idea of sitting back to give his rivals a chance to advance, a trend that emerged during the Lance Armstrong era, stressing that every opportunity to win must be seized.

"I'm not here to make enemies, but this is the Tour de France. You can't just back down. The team pays you to win, not to give up. If there's an opportunity, try to take advantage of it," the Slovenian said.

The world champion's crushing victory in today's time trial consolidated his lead in the overall standings, a day after he dealt a major blow to his main rivals.

The defending champion holds a massive four minutes and seven seconds lead over Jonas Vingaard, having quadrupled his lead over the Dane in two days.

However, Pogačar said he is not thinking about reaching the next summit yet.

"Today was the most important moment of the Tour de France. We will now take it step by step. The goal is to defend the lead and maintain the same gap. We cannot exhaust the team; we have to be smart," he said.

Pogačar showed no regrets when asked if his dominance might put other competitors off.

"When I finish my career, I probably won't talk to 99 percent of the contestants anyway. I'll focus on my close friends and family," he added.

Despite this boasting, Pogačar is fully aware of how quickly things can deteriorate in the Tour de France.

"I was in shambles in 2022 and 2023," he said, referring to his painful loss to Vingaard. "I had great rounds but lost. You never know. A bad day can always come."

(Prepared by Ahmed Al-Ghannam for the Arabic Bulletin)