The words of warning given after Tadej Pogacar's stunning performance on Stage 4 of the Vuelta a Espana turned out to be sadly prophetic for UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
Pogacar had just produced an astonishing solo win in Andorra, with the attack launched 50km from the finish line, which resulted in his overall lead jumping from 9 seconds to 3 minutes 21 seconds. It was the biggest margin of victory of his Grand Tour career. Such was the Slovenian's dominance that it looked like it was game over for his rivals, despite the fact there were still 17 stages to go.
Team boss Matxin Joxean Fernandez was at pains to remind people of that latter fact. “Tadej has made a big statement,” he said. "[But] there's a long way to go, too. Look at the Tour and what happened to Jonas Vingegaard … there was a roundabout, a bend, and suddenly he'd fallen, and he was gone.”
The Spaniard was referring to Stage 15 of the Tour de France when Vingegaard's race ended after he suffered a crash that left him with a broken collarbone and ended his season prematurely.
Fast-forward 41 days, and the dangerous nature of elite-level cycling brutally hit home at La Vuelta as Pogacar hit the deck with just over 30km of Stage 8 left.
The 27-year-old had been thrown heavily over his handlebars in the middle of the peloton, leaving him with a concussion and, like his old rival Vingegaard, a broken collarbone. His hopes of a first Vuelta crown were over.
“He was leading the race and on course to win the Vuelta a Espana,” said an ashen-faced Fernandez on Friday. “On paper, if something like this hadn’t happened, we had every reason to be optimistic. Unfortunately, though, this is another stone in the road, just like in life generally.”
Teammate Pavel Sivakov described how Pogacar was drinking from his bottle when he hit a small object on the road – with reports suggesting either a rock or a piece of equipment such as a GoPro camera – and lost his balance.
“I was on Tadej's wheel when the crash happened,” said the French rider. “Maybe if you had two hands on the handlebars, it would have been a different crash, because when you lose the bars with one hand, you're really exposed; you cannot really protect yourself.”
On Sunday morning, Pogacar posted a photo of himself on his Instagram Story from his hospital bed in Barcelona, soundtracked by the Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive, in which he wore a neck brace and plasters on wounds on his head and hands.
Because of his concussion, surgery had to be delayed, but on Monday night the Emirati team announced that Pogacar “underwent successful surgery on his left clavicle” and will remain in hospital to be monitored “for a few days”.
“When ready, Tadej will travel home to begin his recovery and rehabilitation under the supervision of the team’s medical staff. We will continue to monitor his progress closely throughout the recovery process,” UAE Team Emirates-XRG medical director Dr Adrian Rotunno said in a statement.
It remains likely that the six-time Grand Tour champion's season is now over, with Pogacar set to miss out on the chance of winning a third consecutive gold medal in the elite men's race at the Road World Championships, which take place in Montreal on September 27.
Both Fernandez and Pogacar's agent, Alex Carera, insisted over the weekend that no decision has been made and that there would be no rush to make a call. “Only after the surgery is complete will we know exactly how long his recovery will be … In short, let's cross our fingers and wait for the next updates,” Carera told Quibici Sport on Saturday.
If the worst-case scenario emerges and his campaign is over, it will not take the shine off what has been yet another magnificent season in the saddle for Pogacar.
His victories include the Milano-Sanremo, Tour de Romandie, Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and a fifth Tour de France title.
In La Vuelta, he had already won three stages and built up a formidable lead of nearly four minutes in the general classification before Friday's crash. His third and final stage win in Spain – which saw Pogacar narrowly avoid crashing out of the race two days before he actually did – took him to 22 victories in 2026.
Pogacar's only other disappointment came in the Paris-Roubaix, when he finished runner-up for the second year running – to Mathieu van der Poel in 2025 and then Wout van Aert in April, when the Belgian came out on top in a gripping sprint finish.
“The big goal remains Paris−Roubaix,” admitted Pogacar, who needs to win the “Hell of the North” to complete a clean sweep of cycling's five Monument races, at the start of August.
With that, La Vuelta, the Itzulia Basque Country and a record-breaking sixth Tour crown – as well as an Olympic gold medal at the 2028 LA Games – still to tick off his to-do list, there are plenty of goals left before Pogacar decides to call it a day, although that horror fall on Friday provided a stark reminder that riders do not necessarily get the final say in that decision.
