Tadej Pogačar may have been off the bike for five weeks after his Vuelta crash, but he’s now winter training a full month earlier than usual (Photo: Gaëtan Flamme)
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) has said while he missed five weeks of cycling after his crash at La Vuelta last month, he has already begun winter training, one month sooner than he usually would.
He also revealed he had been hoping to return to racing to ride the European Road Championships two weeks ago in his native Slovenia. But once he started to get on his bike again, he had to accept it was not possible.
“Last week I started the new season and now it’s a slow build-up for the future,” Pogačar to Slovenian broadcaster RTVSlo.
“The desire for next year would, of course, be the World Championships, with the Tour and the Vuelta. If the Vuelta somehow didn’t work out this year.
“Even if I would rather go to the Giro, I will have to check off the Vuelta at some point. I think that will be the goal for next year.”
Pogačar had surgery on his broken collarbone after his stage 8 crash at La Vuelta. And though he was pictured on his home trainer about two weeks later, he said he could not ride on the road for five weeks, and then also took a holiday.
He had already won three stages at the Vuelta when he crashed, and was leading the race by 3:50 from eventual winner Enric Mas (Movistar Team). He hit a large rock in the road – which he has now confirmed as the cause of his heavy fall – as the peloton was training at speed.
The five-time Tour winner suffered concussion, a displaced left clavicle fracture, a stable C7 cervical fracture, and multiple abrasions.
“Because the injury was quite serious. It took me quite a while to get out on the bike,” he said, confirming that period was five weeks.
“When my shoulder healed and I no longer had any consequences or dizziness, I pulled myself together, and we were also on vacation,” he explained.
“I started training on the trainer and physiotherapy with the thought that I could go to the European Championships, which gave me additional motivation for rehabilitation.
“But still, a little over two weeks before the European Championships, the time came to realize that there was no point in racing.
“Because if I fell again, the consequences could be really serious and it wasn’t worth the risk. I have now been training regularly for a week, which is a month earlier than in previous years.”
He insisted he had hit a rock at La Vuelta, describing any other speculation about the cause of the incident as “fake news”.
In his absence from the final major races of the year, his team mate Brandon McNulty (USA) won the Worlds, which Pogačar had won for the past two seasons.
He also did not get to defend his European title, taken by Remco Evenepoel (Belgium), while Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) won Il Lombardia, where Pogačar finished his season last year with a win.