Shocked, concerned and still trying to absorb what happened in the finale of stage 8 of the Vuelta a España, UAE Team Emirates-XRG management have said that their only priority after Tadej Pogačar crashed out is to support the rider as much as possible.
Some 34 kilometres from the finish, what should have been a totally normal transition stage suddenly warped into disaster for the Slovenian champion as he fell heavily on the left-hand side of the road.
Visibly shocked and with his shoulder bloodied, after briefly attempting to continue, Pogačar had no choice but to end his Vuelta there and then. It was his first abandon in a race since crashing out of Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2023, and his first ever in a Grand Tour.
After more than a week when everything seemed to be going Pogačar's way in the Vuelta, suddenly the race had morphed into disaster for the world champion. And at the UAE team bus in a side road of the small finish town of Xeraco, team manager Joxean Fernández Matxin explained to a huddle of media that the team's only concern at the moment was Pogačar's personal wellbeing.
"I thought in the first moment he would continue, but after [there was] shoulder pain, I understood the shoulder was not in a perfect situation for this," Matxin, who had been with Pogačar when he abandoned, said.
"He couldn't continue on his bike, he [had to] go to the ambulance. Now he's with the doctors, and we stay with Tadej."
"Tadej gives a lot of victories to his teammates, to his team, we will try to continue with high moral, to take stages to give to Tadej."
Pogačar initially wanted to go on, Matxin said, but then it quickly became clear that it was not possible. "The reality was the situation was complicated, and his shoulder was in a lot of pain. He couldn't continue."
As for what had caused the accident, it remains unclear, although Sporza has claimed to identify a small rock on the side of the road as being responsible for the crash. But whatever the reason, the fall was a bizarre one, particularly as even though the pace was high, the road was both broad and completely straight.
Matxin himself said that from hereon, in any case, rather than putting the blame on the race or anybody else, the main priority of the team was Pogačar the person.
"Now we stay with Tadej the person, his personal situation is bad so we need to stay with him. And we'll continue in the race," he ended, before confirming Pogačar was in hospital.
"At the time, I couldn't talk to him, obviously, about what actually happened, " Matxin then told TVE, "But these are situations that sometimes happen in cycling,"
"Now in any case, we have to be with Tadej the person, not with Tadej Pogačar the cyclist, or Tadej Pogačar the champion or Tadej Pogačar the leader of the Vuelta."
"We need to be with him more in the bad moments than we do in the good ones."
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