Tour de France leader Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) insisted he had "nothing to hide" when asked by a journalist after stage 15, "I can assure you I have nothing to worry about regarding your reliability."

Roglic told a press conference minutes after he and the Jumbo-Visma team had delivered a ruthless and dominant performance in the day's three mountains.

Their strong climbing ability caused Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadier) and others to lose 7 minutes, and Logric's previous 72-second lead over fifth place is now just over 2 minutes.

Compatriot Tadei Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) won his second mountain stage and is now 40 seconds behind, but Roglic said he would be happy with the same margin on Pogacar before heading into the final time trial next weekend.

Asked about his own reliability, given that "there are always doubts about the Tour leader going into the third week," Roglic said he need not worry.

"I think they have a lot of control. Today they had full control after 6 a.m. So I really don't think they have anything to hide, and I definitely trust them, at least from my side."

On the sporting side, Roglic admitted that he was outpaced by Pogacar in the final sprint, but praised his teammate highly for his hard work throughout.

After Tony Martin's great work on the flats up to the three first class mountains, Jumbo-Visma's Robert Gesink did most of the Col de la Biche by himself, and Wout Van Aert was particularly noteworthy on the Grand Colombier, even cracking Bernal. George Bennett took over after him, and Tom Dumoulin struggled mightily near the summit.

"The riders were really strong. In fact, the plan was to leave it to the breakaway group and it wasn't us who controlled the race," claimed Roglic.

"But we were able to control the breakaway and everyone was in really good shape. But we knew we could control it and everyone was feeling really good.

Going into the final time trial of La Planche des Belle Filles under the same circumstances, a 40-second lead over Roglic would have been enough, he insisted.

However, he insisted that there was no gift for Pogacar at the summit of the Grand Colombier, saying, "He was certainly the strongest. We are friends, but we all want to win and we always fight as hard as we can."