The impact of Tadej Pogacar’s withdrawal from the Vuelta

The great cycling champions, the top winners, hardly ever fall. This is because they rarely hesitate, and trouble steers clear of those who do not hesitate. Or rather, it’s nice to believe that this is the case; there’s nothing better than placing one’s trust in innocent lies with no consequences. The fact remains that the great cycling champions – the top winners, at least – hardly ever fall. That is why, when they do fall, we are all the more surprised and feel overcome by a sense of injustice. Tadej Pogačar fell during the eighth stage of the 2026 Vuelta, a race he was dominating as only he has done in recent years and as few others have managed to do in history. He fell during a stage that had little or no bearing on the outcome of the three-week race – one of those increasingly rare stages that reward the tenacity of the sprinters, the ones everyone would love to shake off the peloton but never quite manage to do so.

Tadej Pogačar had made it clear right from the start that he was the strongest; he had tried to build up a lead of minute after minute over the rest of the field, and he had succeeded. In the Pyrenees of Andorra, he had cycled 50 kilometres alone, staging one of his most captivating and longest cycling feats on the Pyrenean roads. He had built up a lead of just under a minute on the way to Castelló, whilst marvelling at Enric Mas’s recovery. Yesterday he had added another ten seconds or so, just in case. The gap to the others was not insurmountable, but it was very difficult—almost impossible—to close. He had done all this to give himself greater peace of mind in the second and third weeks, to prevent a minor problem from forcing him to push harder than necessary. He had other plans beyond the Vuelta: the World Championships and the Giro di Lombardia.

Cycling is no joke, but it has its own sense of irony. Every now and then, it sacrifices someone in the name of the pact it has made with that devilish tarmac. This time, it was the turn of the strongest rider, Tadej Pogačar.

It had never happened before. It had never happened before that the Slovenian champion had withdrawn from a Grand Tour with a stage still to go. It had never happened before that he had failed to make it onto the podium in the final city.

The incident occurred due to a stone on the edge of the carriageway.

The incident occurred today in Spain, thirty-three kilometres from the finish line, near Simat de la Valldigna, a village said to have been founded out of awe at the beauty of the surroundings. According to local tradition—though such narratives often blend into legend when villages and the Middle Ages are concerned—it was James II of Aragon who, impressed by the area’s grandeur, granted the abbot of Santes Creus a plot of land. According to local chronicles, James II of Aragon, while passing through the area and struck by the magnificence of the landscape, granted the abbot of Santes Creus a plot of land – “whichever he prefers and of whatever size he deems necessary” – to build an abbey “in this land worthy of God’s magnificence”.

A country that has robbed cycling fans of the beauty of Tadej Pogačar’s riding style in this year’s Vuelta.