Tadej Pogačar Crashes Out of Vuelta a España, Suspected Broken Collarbone Ends Grand Tour Bid

A stage 8 pileup ends a runaway lead

Tadej Pogačar's dominant run at the 2026 Vuelta a España ended Saturday, August 29, when the race leader crashed hard roughly 32-33 kilometers from the finish of stage 8, a flat run from Puçol to Xeraco in Spain's Valencian Community. Sources differ slightly on the exact distance, citing figures between 31km and 33km.

The 27-year-old Slovenian, riding for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, went down in the peloton shortly after the intermediate sprint in Simat de Valldigna, just ahead of the stage's only climb, the Puerto de Barx.

He tried to get back on his bike. He couldn't. Pogačar walked to an ambulance with his left arm in a sling, blood on his face and shoulder, and was taken straight to a hospital, according to the BBC and cyclingnews.

UAE sport manager Joxean Fernández "Matxín" told reporters, including the New York Times, that Pogačar initially wanted to continue. "At the beginning he wanted to continue but we saw that he had pain in his shoulder. We decided he couldn't continue. All he said was, 'Only pain, only pain,'" Matxín said. He added Pogačar's eyebrow cut would likely need stitches: "It wasn't a big cut but it was bleeding a lot."

The New York Times reported the injury as a suspected broken collarbone, based on footage of Pogačar wincing and holding the area. UAE was expected to release a fuller medical update Saturday evening local time.

Crash cause unclear

Accounts of what happened differ across outlets. The New York Times reported that footage appeared to show Pogačar trying to avoid a stone in the road. Cycling Weekly reported he "appeared to have hit a small rock on the left-hand side of the road." Cyclingnews described something different: helicopter footage showing Pogačar swerve right and collide with either a Visma-Lease a Bike or Uno-X Mobility rider before hitting the ground.

Matxín said the team doesn't know exactly. "We don't know exactly what happened," he said. "If he touched the wheel of someone or if he just simply fell. We don't know. I don't want to give a reason that wasn't the actual reason."

Tudor Pro Cycling rider Larry Warbasse, who was riding in the bunch, told Velo and other outlets the run into town was chaotic well before the crash. "It was super fast run into the town and there was a bunch of bollards in the road, everyone is going left and right, and then, boom! There was a big crash on the left," Warbasse said, as reported by Outside Online. Visma's Ben Tulett and Netcompany-INEOS riders Oscar Onley and Carlos Rodríguez were also caught up in the incident but were not hurt.

The GC gets blown open

Pogačar had started the day 3 minutes 50 seconds clear of Movistar's Enric Mas after winning three of the race's first seven stages, since the Vuelta opened in Monaco. His abandonment hands the red jersey to Mas, who now leads Decathlon CMA CGM's Felix Gall by 1 minute 11 seconds, according to the BBC.

Outside Online reported that Mas, a Spaniard, declined to wear the leader's jersey on the podium out of respect for Pogačar. Outside Online also noted Mas is the first Spanish rider to hold the overall lead since Jesús Herrada in 2018, and that Pogačar is the first Vuelta race leader to crash out since Igor Antón in 2010.

The stage itself was still decided at the line. France's Bryan Coquard, 34, edged Lidl-Trek's Mads Pedersen in a photo finish for his first-ever Grand Tour stage win. "I think it has been 13 years, it has been a lot of work and I have finished second a lot of times," Coquard told TNT Sports.

A rare setback for a dominant rider

Pogačar's seven remaining teammates waited on the road for him before remounting and riding to the finish together, arriving several minutes down and skipping media obligations, according to Outside Online.

It was the first time Pogačar has abandoned a Grand Tour and his first DNF in any race since he fractured his wrist at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2023, an injury that disrupted his preparation for that year's Tour de France, which he went on to finish second. He had already won five Tours de France and a Giro d'Italia, and was chasing a Vuelta win that would have made him just the ninth rider in history to win all three Grand Tours.

BBC's coverage noted that many observers believed Pogačar was on track to win by more than 10 minutes given the Vuelta's typically shallower field of GC contenders.

Pogačar's next scheduled race is the road world championships, roughly four weeks out, according to the New York Times. Whether he can defend the rainbow jersey he currently holds depends on how quickly his shoulder and collarbone recover, and UAE Team Emirates-XRG had not confirmed the full extent of the injury as of Saturday evening.