“Can you sum up the first days of racing in this Tour de France?” Mathieu van der Poel was asked in an interview with TNT Sports earlier this week. “Hot,” he replied.

The Tour’s opening week has been defined by scorching temperatures, which pushed past 40 degrees yesterday. On stage three, spectators were asked to stay away from the finish due to wildfires in the eastern Pyrenees; stage nine was cut short due to an “exceptionally intense” heatwave. Across the race’s television coverage, we have seen riders pouring water over their helmets, stuffing ice socks down their backs, or pictured after the race in an ice bath. For teams, cooling riders down became a race of its own. “With climate change, we see that it’s becoming hotter and hotter every year. We focus a lot on cooling,” said Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe doctor Samuel Fisser in a team YouTube video. Soigneur Jacques Horn, preparing for stage three, added: “Extra cold drinks today. Ice socks, ice gels. The guys will wear some ice jackets before the start to try and keep the body cold as possible for as long as possible.”

Before the team time trial, Netcompany Ineos were photographed with their forearms in buckets of cold water. Yesterday, Victor Campenaerts – a man known for bending sartorial rules – took matters into his own hands with a controversial decision to forego socks. “I’m not a big fan of that,” Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Matteo Jorgenson told Stanley St. Social. “It’s for the heat. He wants the least amount of clothing possible on him. That’s a very Victor Campenaerts thing to do.” Jorgenson may not approve, but on their rest day ride today, Jonas Vingegaard – already a short socks proponent – and Davide Piganzoli followed suit.

But how much is too much? Asked about the heat in yesterday’s press conference, race leader Tadej Pogačar suggested that changes needed to be made. “If I could have the power to change it, I would change all the calendar. I would not race in July or August in the hot places,” he said. “Maybe the next step will be to start the stages earlier.”

A fierce green jersey battle

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The temperatures aren’t the only thing that has been hotting up this week. Three sprint stages have lit up the competition for the green jersey, which remains tantalisingly close. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) leads Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team) by 45 points, with Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) 10 points behind, two stunning wins under his belt. So far, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Premier-Tech) has been frustrated in the flat sprints, but he is still in contention – and a win from Max Kanter (XDS Astana) or stage five winner Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) could disrupt the whole table.

With points rules changed this year – flat sprints are now worth 70 points, not 50 – we are witnessing a battle between the outright sprinters, like Merlier, and the more versatile fast men, like Pedersen, who is aggressively pursuing intermediate sprint points. As Pedersen put it: “Merlier has a different approach to the green jersey than I have… I’m just not good enough in these sprints. Two different approaches, but the same goal. I hope that’s exciting to see at home.” It certainly is.

Slim pickings for the breakaways

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Regrettably, there have only been two breakaway wins – Pedersen on stage four and Mathieu van der Poel yesterday – in nine Tour de France stages. But that hasn’t stopped riders from trying.

This week’s breakaway hero was Baptiste Veistroffer from Lotto Intermarché, who has spent more than 300 kilometres out front, including a wild 144 kilometres solo on stage five, after attacking from kilometre zero. He has now been in the breakaway more than any other rider this season. “I wanted to enjoy myself,” he said afterwards. “That’s exactly what I did.” The Frenchman’s efforts have earned him two combativity awards – and a new fan club, who chanted his name, jumping in the air, outside the team bus before stage eight.

After two days of disappointment for Philipsen, Mathieu van der Poel took the pressure off the team before the rest day with a thrilling breakaway win in Ussel. It was his third Tour de France stage win, and came 64 years to the day after his grandfather Raymond Poulidor’s first victory in the race in 1962. Asked if there would be more stage wins to follow, the Dutchman replied: “Maybe it’s a one-day festival for me… But at least it was a nice one!”

Part of the reason for the lack of breakaway success so far has been UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s stranglehold on any escapees. The team have ruthlessly denied riders from rivals Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and Visma-Lease a Bike from joining a break – particularly Jorgenson, and god knows the man has tried. They’ve kept the rest of the peloton on an ultra-tight leash too. Yesterday, despite there not being a discernible GC threat off the front, they doggedly chased the break, reducing the gap to seconds by the finish. Why? For a possible stage win? To make the race hard? To gain time on the team classification? Or, more likely, just because they could.

This was Pogačar’s interpretation. “I will be honest,” he said. “We didn’t plan to catch the breakaway, but we were riding at Tim Wellens’ pace, and he was feeling good, obviously.”

The dominance of UAE

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The Tour’s opening week has been a parade of the team’s pedigree. UAE have picked up three stage wins already, with Pogačar holding a lead of 2:42 on GC. His teammate Isaac del Toro is currently third – above Remco Evenepoel, Juan Ayuso and Paul Seixas. In the Pyrenees on stage six, UAE really asserted themselves, with rouleur Nils Politt putting climbers under the cosh on the Col d’Aspin, and riders dropping, one by one, as the team took it in turns to pull on the Tourmalet.

This show of strength, day after day, has inevitably drawn frustration: are UAE suffocating the race by chasing down breakaways? Is Pogačar killing cycling? as L’Équipe asked on Saturday. Movistar rider Pablo Castrillo certainly made his thoughts clear after yesterday’s stage, telling Spanish media: “I don’t understand UAE. It makes no sense that they didn’t give the breakaway any more room to manoeuvre… It was a breakaway that posed no real danger; we had to push much harder than we should have, and in the end, that’s why the four who contested the victory were so exhausted.”

Grand Tours are attritional races, where repeated days of effort under the hot sun inevitably take their toll. Going into the second week, let’s hope that UAE must pick their battles.

What to expect from week two

The Tour’s second week kicks off with fireworks: a mountain stage on Bastille Day, of all days. The French climbers on the startlist – Paul Seixas, Lenny Martinez, Valentin Paret-Peintre, Guillaume Martin and Kévin Vauquelin among them – will all have their sights on the ultimate stage win.

There will be more opportunities for the sprinters on Wednesday, Thursday and even Friday, which may favour Pedersen and Girmay, before the race returns to the mountains at the weekend. The two brutal back-to-back days take in 7,750 metres of climbing, including the Ballon d’Alsace (8.9km at 6.9%) on Saturday, which made its first appearance in the Tour in 1905, and the Plateau de Solaison (11.3km at 9.1%), where Sunday’s finish is held. With a rest day on Monday, expect riders to empty the tank in the battle for the yellow jersey.

“I go into the rest day with a good feeling,” Pedersen said after stage nine. “Bring on next week.”