The sports director of UAE Emirates, Matxín Fernández, said today that Tadej Pogacar was drinking water at the time of the fall that drove him away from Volta to Spain on a bicycle, when he was leading the race with comfortable advantage.
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A just over 32 kilometres from the end of the eighth stage, between Puçol and Xeraco, in the Valencian Community, the 27-year-old Slovenian, swung suddenly to the right and collided with the platoon, suffering wounds on the eyebrow and left shoulder after falling into the asphalt, a situation that dictated his first abandonment in a ‘big turn’, to 10th participation.
“It’s a drop in cycling. He was drinking water and suffered a fall. He wanted to continue, but we saw that his shoulder was very affected. We decided it couldn’t go on. I had to get stitches on my eyebrow. The wound wasn’t big, but it was bleeding a lot,” he emphasized to the journalists, after the completion of the shot.
Responsible for the team since 2017, the Basque did not clarify whether the winner of five editions of the Tour a France and a Tour a Italy suddenly encountered some obstacle in the flat line in which he followed the platoon and recognized that the accident is “hard to assimilate”.
Matxín Fernández pointed out that the seven UAE corridors Emirates still in trial, among which the Portuguese João Almeida and Ivo Oliveira, have to withdraw motivation from the circumstance to try victories in stages to dedicate to Tadej Pogacar.
Still no data on the world champion’s downtime, after being transported to a hospital, the sports director expressed his desire to see his recovered runner “as soon as possible”, eventually in time to compete in the World Championships in Montreal, Canada, between September 20 and 27, to try to revalidate the background title.
The new leader of the Vuelta, Enric Mas (Movistar), who held second place at the beginning of the eighth stage, at 3.50 minutes from Pogacar, refused to wear the red sweater on the ascent to the podium as a sign of respect for the Slovenian, whom he wished a quick recovery.
“It’s a bittersweet feeling to get the red sweater the way it was. Tomorrow [Sunday], we will try to defend it, but we must assimilate everything that has happened,” he said in statements to Eurosport.
The 31-year-old Spanish runner from the island of Mallorca also mentioned that his team usually train in the region during the December concentrations and assumed some fear at the outset for the taken, drawn on roads where it is possible to obtain high speeds.
The leader of the point rating, the Belgian Wout van Aert (Visma-Lese a Bike), also recognized the “weird feeling” by watching Tadej Pogacar give up and wished him “a quick recovery”, assuming he was near the Slovenian when he fell.
“I was near him when I saw him lose control of his bike. I managed to avoid the fall. We’ll miss him in the race. Too bad he’s away like this. He lost control with both hands and headed right towards the platoon. I don’t think I’ve lost concentration,” he said.
Winner of 13 ‘Monuments’ and two editions of the championship of the background world, in addition to the races by stages, Tadej Pogacar fails the goal of winning the Vuelta for the first time and becoming the ninth rider to triumph in the ‘three great’ Tours.