Drama but no crisis in Pogacar's brief moment of Vuelta vulnerability

Outside the UAE Team Emirates-XRG bus in Castelló, sports manager Matxín Joxean Fernández smiled broadly when it was put to him that this had not been one of Tadej Pogačar’s better days. “A less good day?” he said with playful incredulity. “Tell me what the bad ones look like then…”

Perhaps Matxín is right. Maybe we are collectively suffering from a form of Pogačar derangement syndrome by now. The Slovenian’s dominance these past three seasons has completely distorted what we might previously have expected from a bike race. And it means that any fleeting display of vulnerability from Pogačar can easily be blown out of all proportion.

Pogačar still won stage 6 of the Vuelta a España, and he still ended the day with an increased lead atop the overall standings. He is now 3:34 clear of Enric Mas (Movistar), while Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) has been relegated to 4:21 and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) is 4:50 down.

The worst day of Pogačar’s Vuelta so far – and perhaps of his entire, near-perfect season – was still better than the best day of most riders’ careers. In all of sport, perhaps only pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis is held to a similar standard, where any less than perfection is seized upon for traces of weakness.

Still, the sight of Pogačar being caught by a dogged Enric Mas atop the Puerto de Bartolo on stage 6 certainly wasn’t on anybody’s bingo card before this Vuelta a España. But then again, every so often, there are these afternoons where he reminds us that nobody is entirely invincible.

When Jonas Vingegaard caught and then beat Pogačar at Le Lioran on the 2024 Tour de France, it raised the giddy prospect of a real duel between the peloton’s big two. When Pogačar faded dramatically at Amstel Gold Race last year, it fired belief that Remco Evenepoel might challenge him at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

But like Merckx, Hinault and the other cycling dictatorships that came before him, Pogačar responds to the first ripples of insurrection with a swift and brutal crackdown. The 2024 Tour became an exercise in running up the score. The 2025 Liège-Bastogne-Liège was the usual exhibition. 

There’s every chance that the pattern will repeat itself at this Vuelta. Pogačar already all but wrapped up overall victory with his solo exhibition in Andorra on stage 4, but history suggests that the (very) relative setback of being caught on a climb might persuade him to hit back with interest on the summit finish at Valdelinares on stage 7. 

Pogačar is in midst of season that has bordered on perfection. He has won all his stage races thus far – the Tour de Romandie, the Tour de Suisse and Tour de France – without betraying so much as a moment of weakness along the way. And the only blemish on his one-day record was defeat to Wout van Aert at the end of one of the most tumultuous editions of Paris-Roubaix in the race’s history.

When Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad set to work ahead of the climb of Puerto de Bartolo on Thursday, the direction of travel seemed clear. Kevin Vermaerke’s long, long shift kept the break within touching distance, and then Jay Vine and Pablo Torres ratcheted up the pace on the ascent itself.

In the new normal of Pogačar’s imperial phase, this was about as routine as it gets. Pogačar’s inevitable acceleration came with 3.7km of the climb remaining. Oscar Onley gamely tried to follow, but like Felix Gall in Andorra, he lasted exactly 300m before realising that his legs were being asked to write a cheque his lactate threshold simply could not cash.

By the time Pogačar hit the 1.9km stretch of gravel further up the ascent, it looked like another solo exhibition among many. Indeed, the world champion assumed as much himself, with the race radio suggesting that his rivals were trailing at close to a minute.

When Pogačar sensed someone on his shoulder near the summit of the climb, his first thought was to assume that an over-eager fan had decided to ride alongside him. Instead, it was Mas.

Pogačar confessed afterwards that he hadn’t dosed his effort smartly on the climb – “I think I paced it all wrong” – and although the Slovenian complained that he had been without a bidon on the run-in to Castelló, Matxín insisted that there had been no error in nutrition or hydration on the climb itself.

“No, what happened was that there was no information available, and we’d been told that Tadej was there on his own, with the chasers at 50 seconds or something like that,” Matxín told Domestique. “We were given that information, and then when we watched the television, Enric Mas was there with him. So we didn’t realise at the time that Enric Mas was so close by.”

On the sinuous descent, meanwhile, Pogačar was shaken still further when he rode off the road, though he quickly managed to right himself and rejoin Mas at the front. Behind, Roglic, Gall and the other chasers might have begun to take heart as they close to within half a minute, but Pogačar and Mas combined well enough to stretch their lead out all over again as Castelló drew near. 

Although Mas surprisingly had Pogačar’s number at the 2022 Giro dell’Emilia, there would be no repeat here. Unlike at Le Lioran or at Amstel, the outcome of this sprint was never in doubt, with Pogačar streaking away from Mas within sight of the line. 

As bad – or less good – days go, this was all very dramatic, but hardly a crisis. This version of Pogačar doesn’t really do those.