UAE Team Emirates performance coach Iñigo San Millán has said that the main reason why Tadej Pogačar cracked so badly on the Col de la Loze was due to his badly affected training schedule after he crashed and fractured his wrist in Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
In an interview with L'Equipe, the Basque doctor and head of performance said that his Liège-Bastogne-Liège injury had prevented Pogačar from doing his second key block of training.
After losing over 90 seconds to race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) in Tuesday's time trial, Pogačar then cracked badly on the ultra-long Col de la Loze on Wednesday, losing nearly six minutes and saying over race radio during the climb: "I'm dead, I'm gone."
However, San Millán also argued that running second overall in the Tour de France on only one full block of training constituted a success. He also argued that Pogačar peak for the Spring Classics that led to victories in the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne did not have a knock-effect on his performance in the Tour de France.
Asked if the wrist injury's consequences for the Slovenian's training program were enough to explain why Pogačar had suffered so badly, San Millán told L'Équipe, "That's what we're in the process of working out.
"I don't know if it's the only reason, but for sure it's the main one."
"Tadej did two big blocks of training before the Tour, the first at the start of the season, the second in the spring. But his crash at Liège prevented him from doing the second block."
"He broke his wrist on April 23rd and he couldn't get back on his bike until May 25th.
"A home trainer is good, but it's not enough. He lost three weeks of training in May and he could only do three good weeks of training in June - if we factor in the rest days, only 15 days.
"We knew it would be pushing things to an extreme. I don't think any rider has won the Tour with less than a month's training."
San Millán said that the team decided to send Pogačar to the Tour despite these setbacks because "he's the best rider in the world. But he needed a second block of training to hold on for three weeks."
The UAE Team Emirates coach said that he did not think that the Slovenian being in top condition for the Tour of Flanders harmed his performance in the Tour. He said, "his best numbers ever were after Flanders, so good I found them hard to believe, I thought he'd overtrained."
But San Milan spent a week carrying out lactate tests on tPogačar and found that the data was correct. He had improved physically - something he proceeded to show at the Ardennes Classics. His crash in Liège, however, "meant he went back to square one."
San Millán did not rule out Pogačar trying for a stage victory on Saturday in the Vosges but argued that running second in the Tour on what he considered to be one block of training was already impressive.
"A normal rider would be running 15th at best. It seems like a major defeat, but in fact, this is a huge performance."
