Tadej Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates) insists he is still in contention for the overall Tour de France despite being dropped by race leader Primoš Roglic (Jumbo Visma) in the mountains for the first time this season.

Pogachar predicted before Wednesday's 17th stage that he could gain a few seconds, but could lose as much as 30 minutes on the ultra-intense Col de la Rose.

As it turned out, the former prediction, not the latter, was correct, and Pogachar lost out to Roglic by just 15 seconds, widening the overall time gap with the Slovenian Tour leader from 40 seconds to 57 seconds.

However, with one tough alpine stage remaining as well as the final time trial on Saturday, Pogačar refused to throw in the towel.

"I lost a few seconds on a really hard climb. I did my best and the team did their best. The Tour is not over yet and anything can happen.

"You can win or you can lose the podium. Let's give it a go. We'll go with the flow and do our best tomorrow."

Pogachar also said Monday that even if he did not wear yellow in Paris, he would be happy to wear the UAE Team Emirates jersey on the Champs-Elysées given the overall success of the team.

However, while it is clear that yellow is still a possibility, and increasingly unlikely, he believes that wearing the UAE Team jersey on the final podium on Sunday could be an option.

"I am happy with my performance. Bahrain ran a really fast tempo in the Madeleine and the race exploded in the last few kilometers in the Col de la Rose," Pogachar said.

And in a roller-coaster finale, Pogachar continued to close the gap on Roglic. As a result, during the last two kilometers, every time Pogachar caught his compatriot within range, his energy suddenly disappeared and he fell back again.

"The repetition of steep and flat sections made today really hard. It was also one of the hardest finals so far because of the high altitude," Pogachal recalled.

"I'm glad I didn't lose any more time in that hard finale. I will fight until the end."