Defending champion Tadej Pogacar was caught out in a late crash on stage 11 of the Tour de France, hitting the deck with 4km to go on a breathless and chaotic stage.
The world champion appeared to overlap wheels with Tobias Halland Johannessen, the 10th-placed rider in the general classification, as a reduced group of favourites headed towards the finish line in Toulouse.
The incident saw Pogacar crash and slide across the road into the kerb, but he appeared unhurt, immediately getting back up and attempting to fix his chain. A neutral service mechanic helped fix the mechanical and the Slovenian, currently second on GC at 29” behind yellow jersey Ben Healy, made his way back into a passing group of riders with a teammate dropping back to pilot him back into the group of favourites.
The crash occurred outside the 3km safety zone, which is put in place on certain stages and ensures that any rider who suffers a crash in the final 3km is awarded the same time as that of the group he was originally in. Pogacar crashing outside that zone meant he risked losing time on his rivals as he battled to get back into the group.
That group – including his major rival, Jonas Vingegaard, and the Dane’s teammate Matteo Jorgenson – sportingly knocked off the pace to allow Pogacar back on, with Healy a key rider in establishing the temporary truce.
“I’m quite okay. I’m a bit beaten up, but we’ve been through worse days,” Pogacar said afterwards.
“Unfortunately one rider decided to follow from left to right side of the road, and he didn’t see me, and he just completely cut me off, my front wheel. Luckily I just have a little bit of skin off. I was scared when I saw the sidewalk that I was going with my head directly to the sidewalk, but luckily my skin is tough and stopped me.”
UAE Team Emirates-XRG sports director Andrej Hauptman told TNT Sports that Pogacar was taken to the team doctor to dress his wounds, and added, “We need to say thanks to our rivals because it was really fair play after the crash, this was nice to see. Thank you Ben, another day that you can see that he’s a really great champion.”
“Really big respect to everybody in front,” Pogacar added, with the Slovenian filmed shaking hands and thanking his rivals for waiting at the end of the stage. “Obviously the race was more or less over back there, but still, they could take time – maybe not take too much time – but I would need to go really deep to come back like this.”
The stage, a 157km run starting and finishing in Toulouse was won by Norwegian Uno X-Mobility rider Jonas Abrahamsen, who took a maiden grand tour stage victory in a two-up sprint with breakaway companion Mauro Schmid.
The general classification battle is set to truly kick off on stage 12, a 180km ride from Auch to Hautacam in the Pyrenees, featuring four classified climbs including the first hors-categorie climb of this year’s race up to the summit finish at Hautacam.
Today’s crash came at a less than ideal time for Pogacar with the first real mountainous test of the race on the horizon, followed by another two hugely significant days in the Pyrenees on Friday and Saturday.
“Tomorrow is a big day coming. We’ll see how I recover,” Pogacar continued. “Normally the day after a crash you’re never at the best, but I will give my best tomorrow and we’ll see. I think we’re ready as a team for Hautacam.”
