{"id":753843,"date":"2026-08-29T19:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753843\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T19:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:24:12","slug":"tadej-pogacar-pulls-out-of-vuelta-a-espana-after-heavy-fall-on-stage-eight-tadej-pogacar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753843\/","title":{"rendered":"Tadej Pogacar pulls out of Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a after heavy fall on stage eight | Tadej Pogacar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Pogacar pulled out of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> on Saturday after a heavy fall 31km from the finish of a flat stage eight left him with shoulder and face injuries.<\/p>\n

The race leader, of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, has won five Tour de France titles and a Giro d\u2019Italia and was targeting his first overall victory in the Spanish 21-day race to join an elite group to have won all three grand tours.<\/p>\n

Pogacar fell after brushing shoulders with another rider and losing control of his handlebars. With his entire team waiting as the peloton carried on without them, Pogacar tried to remount after a couple of minutes but cried out \u201cno\u201d and winced in pain when he touched his bike.<\/p>\n

He was then led to an ambulance as his teammates set off up the road towards the finish line at Xeraco, near Valencia. \u201cSadly Tadej Pogacar<\/a> has been forced out. .. following a crash on stage eight,\u201d UAE Team \u200bEmirates later posted on X, confirming their rider\u2019s withdrawal.<\/p>\n

The new overall race leader, Enric Mas, holds the red jersey after Tadej Pogacar\u2019s withdrawal. Photograph: Josep Lago\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Slovenian had been leading by 3min 50sec over second-placed Spaniard Enric Mas and this marks the first time the 27-year-old has failed to finish a grand tour. Mas was a minute ahead of Pogacar\u2019s compatriot, former champion Primoz Roglic, while the Austrian Felix Gall was a further 11sec behind.<\/p>\n

Mas (Movistar) took the \u200bred jersey after stage eight, becoming the first Spaniard to lead \u200bthe Vuelta since \u200cJesus Herrada in 2018. \u200bGall (Decathlon CMA CGM) moves up to \u200bsecond overall, a minute and 11 seconds behind Mas but 22 seconds clear of Roglic.<\/p>\n

At the podium, a sombre Mas accepted the red jersey \u200bbut did not wear \u200cit, holding it in \u200bfront of him instead. \u201cI hope he gets better quickly,\u201d he said of Pogacar. \u201cWe\u2019ve still got a few races left and I hope he\u2019ll be in good shape for them.\u201c<\/p>\n

In July, Pogacar joined a select group of five-time Tour de France winners in Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indur\u00e1in. He is the youngest rider to have won five Tours, more than a year younger than Merckx was in achieving the same feat, and is the first person to finish on the podium seven years running. He is also the only rider to have been on the podium in nine consecutive grand tours.<\/p>\n

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Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) \u2060won the stage after several riders went down in \u200banother crash in \u200bthe final kilometre. Mads \u200bPedersen finished second while Jordi Meeus was third. The race continues on Sunday with a 187.5 km mountainous ride from Villajoyosa to Alto de Aitana, before a rest day on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Pogacar pulled out of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a on Saturday after a heavy fall 31km from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-753843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}