Tadej Pogacar will not win the Vuelta a España, he will not even finish it. A crash takes him out of the Spanish tour. The Slovenian cyclist, who wore the red leader’s jersey from the first day, went home by ambulance. He abandoned completely in pain from the hard blow, with blood on his left elbow, shoulder, and face after falling to the ground.
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His attempt to win the only grand tour missing from the five-time Tour champion ended abruptly, with an accident in Simat de Valldigna, when the peloton riding all together had just passed the intermediate sprint and was about to climb the Barx pass, the only difficulty of the day.
There were 32.8 kilometers left to the finish in Xeraco. The eighth stage, seemingly insignificant, was fatal for Pogacar, the supreme favorite of the Vuelta. That’s how tough cycling is.
The UAE team leader had the race completely under control, with more than three and a half minutes advantage over his first chaser, Enric Más, who will now be the new leader of the race.
Pogacar was well positioned on the left side of the peloton, surrounded by his teammates. But some object on the shoulder caused a sudden movement, which made him lose control of the bike and collide with a Visma cyclist before hitting the asphalt.
“It seemed to us a quite serious crash. He had a cranioencephalic trauma, a dislocation with possible fracture of the left clavicle, and various contusions,” detailed Álvaro Ortiz, the Vuelta doctor who attended him on the road, to TVE.
“The cyclist was in a lot of pain. When trying to support his left arm on the bike he saw he could not exert force,” revealed the doctor.
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