"He just completely cut me off" - Tadej Pogacar unhappy with late crash on Tour de France's chaotic day

Tadej Pogacar had quite an eventful day at the Tour de France. Ahead of three high-mountain stages, the Slovenian had to follow two dangerous attacks from Jonas Vingegaard on a day that didn't look too dangerous and crashed in the final kilometers of the stage. It's safe to say the UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider does not head into the key stages of the race with the absolute best mindset.

"I'm quite OK, a bit beaten up, but we've been through worse days," he said in a post-race interview. "It's been a hectic day from start to finish. In the end I had a little bit of a crash, thanks to the peloton in front they actually waited. The race was more or less over back there, but still they could take time. Maybe not take too much time, but I would need to go really deep to come back".

Pogacar responded to Visma's moves on the final kilometers of stage 11, after earlier in the day having been surprised by Vingegaard's attack to link up with Wout van Aert. Late in the day it felt easier, but then with 4 kilometers to go he hit the wheels of Tobias Johannessen who swerved in the road at the same time as Pogacar used the radio. In an unusual sight, the World Champion went down and also needed to put his chain back on, losing significant time in what seemed to be a moment that would open up the GC fight quite a lot.

But that's not what happened, as there was a consensus to stop from everyone. "A really big respect to everybody in front. Thanks for your support, guys. We came down from the climb I think everybody was a bit 'a block' (to the limit, ed.). There were attacks from Mateo [Jorgenson] and Jonas [Vingegaard]. They really put everybody on the limit. When they saw Jonny [Narváez] was there, he did a super good job. We started to control the group a little bit. But of course people don't want to take any seconds in a final like this".

Then he explains how the crash happened with the Uno-X Mobility rider: "They start to attack, people start to follow. Unfortunately one rider (Tobias Johannessen, ed.) decided to follow from left to right side of the road. I don't know, he didn't see me. He just completely cut me off from my front wheel. Luckily I just have a little bit of skin off. I was scared when I saw the sidewalk that I'm going with the head directly to sidewalk".

Pogacar did not look badly hurt but it's never ideal to crash in the race, specially with a set of decisive days looming ahead. "Luckily my skin is tough and stopped me before the sidewalk. Tomorrow is a big day coming. Let's hope. We'll see how I recover," he concluded. "Normally the day after crash you're never at the best. But I will give my best tomorrow and we'll see. I think we are ready as a team for Hautacam".