UAE Team Emirates are taking a cautious stance on how Tadej Pogacar’s crash in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and resulting fractured wrist injury will affect their rider's season from here on, saying it is too early to make any predictions.
Pogačar crashed on a descent in the first part of Liège-Bastogne-Liège when both he and Mikkel Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost) were caught up in a crash. Liège was supposed to be Pogačar's last race of the first part of 2023 in what had been a dramatically successful campaign up to that point.
The Slovenian champion had won 12 races, including a dazzling run of triumphs at Paris-Nice, the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold and La Flèche Wallonne, prior to his crash. His battle with Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) in Liège-Bastogne-Liège was keenly anticipated by fans. While Evenepoel, having won Liège, now heads to the Giro d'Italia, Pogačar’s next goal after a period of rest is to try and win the Tour de France in July.
“It’s not such good news, he has multiple fractures to his left wrist;” UAE team manager Mauro Gianetti, himself a winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège back in 1995, pointed out at the finish, “and also he has a fracture of the semilunar bone” - also in the wrist - “that will not need surgery. He will be operated on right now in Genk hospital by a hand specialist.”
Gianetti said he had not spoken to Pogačar directly. “He was there with the doctor, so we’ll let him go into the hospital, and I’ll speak with him, probably, after the surgery.”
The Swiss team manager said that the crash happened when Honoré was unlucky to have a double puncture and the tyres “exploded, and that’s what caused the crash, and he [Pogačar] was involved," he said.
“That’s something that happens in cycling, unfortunately, and this time we were unlucky.”
Regarding his plans for the year and how it will affect that, Gianetti said simply, “It’s too soon to say. Probably we’ll have more information after the surgery, and we’ll see how it goes. As it’s multiple bones to fix, it’s a more complicated operation. So we’re crossing our fingers it will all be ok, and he’ll be able to recover very fast.”
Despite losing Pogačar even before the race had really begun in earnest in Liège, UAE Team Emirates battled on nonetheless, with Marc Hirschi the first rider home in tenth place.
