Chris Horner knows exactly what it means to drag a battered body through a Grand Tour, apparently.
Speaking on The Butterfly Effect, his YouTube channel, the 2009 Vuelta a España champion reflected on Tadej Pogačar’s injury-hit final week at the 2025 Tour de France — and the hidden consequences of racing in pain. Pogi recently opened up about some brutal knee pain that made him wonder if he could even finish the race. The American weighed in on what it’s like to try and race when suffering from an injury.
“In those days tramadol was legal, and I was using it heavily,” Horner admitted of his own crash and knee injury during the 2009 season. “It got me through stages, but I could feel myself getting heavier. Just turning the pedals was a battle.”
He wasn’t pointing fingers at Pogacar, but highlighting how trauma alters the body — and often the rider’s mindset.
Pogačar himself revealed on the Tour 202 podcast that he nearly abandoned what he called his hardest Tour yet. “The day after Ventoux I had knee problems, and I started doubting whether I’d even be able to continue,” he said. “My body was in shock. I didn’t feel great.”
Horner believes the trouble can be traced back to Pogačar’s late crash on Stage 11: “He overlapped wheels, hit the island, went down hard. You damage your hip alignment, then you’ve got thousands of pedal strokes — something gives.” After Stage 16, the UAE Team Emirates leader stopped attacking and started calculating.
“This is the adult version of Pogačar,” Horner said. “If you can’t drop Jonas straight away, you can’t give him time either. He backed off the throttle.”
It wasn’t boredom or lack of ambition, Horner insisted, but protection. On stages 18 and 19, while riders like Ben O’Connor and Thymen Arensman claimed headlines, Pogacar sat still — preserving his GC rather than lighting up the race.
Horner also focused on a largely unseen factor: water retention. “When your body goes into trauma, it absorbs everything,” he explained. “I’ve been in hospital not eating for a week and came out heavier. You’re supposed to lose weight in a Grand Tour — instead, you gain it.”
He recalled warning his own teammates back in 2009: don’t wait for me on Palomar. “I was taking tramadol aggressively just to ride, but the form disappeared.”
What struck Horner most was Pogačar’s honesty. “I love that he’s open about the injury. It tells the real story of why he raced differently.”
And yet, Pogačar still won — not just the Tour, but later Il Lombardia and the world title. Pain didn’t define his season; endurance did. And what a season it was.