Tadej Pogacar’s comeback at La Vuelta ended in pain 33 km from the finish, when a hard crash on the road to Xeraco forced the 27-year-old out of the race. The leader went straight to the ambulance, bloodied and unable to continue, and Enric Mas inherited the overall lead before the stage was done.
The loss was immediate and decisive. Pogacar had started the day 3:50 ahead of Mas, so the crash did not just end one rider’s stage — it flipped the race. For a man who arrived in Spain already carrying five Tour de France titles and a Giro de Italia victory in 2025, this was the chance to add La Vuelta to the Triple Corona, a club so small that the names attached to it remain part of the sport’s mythology.
There was no ambiguity about how serious the scene looked. Doctor Álvaro Ortiz said the diagnosis pointed to “traumatismo craneoencefálico, posible fractura de clavícula izquierda y lesiones varias,” and added that Pogacar “no puede hacer nada con el brazo izquierdo.” That leaves the most important medical question hanging in plain sight: the clavicle injury was only suspected, not confirmed, even as the injuries were severe enough to end his race immediately.
What makes the fall harder to read is what still is not known. The crash came in a straight section of road, with a strange object on the left side of the route to Xeraco believed to have played a part, but the exact cause was not pinned down. Pogacar, who had previously ridden La Vuelta only in 2019, finished third that year and won three stages; now the race moves on without him, and the next update will be the medical assessment that decides whether this was a painful withdrawal or the start of a longer recovery.
