“People think he wins so much it’s about time he had bad luck” – Former UAE teammate defends Tadej Pogacar after Vuelta-ending crash

Finn Fisher-Black has pushed back against the suggestion that Tadej Pogacar’s extraordinary success should make his devastating exit from the 2026 Vuelta a Espana any easier to accept.

The former UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider was inside the peloton when Pogacar crashed on the approach to the decisive climb of Stage 8. Pogacar entered the day with three stage victories and a commanding 3:50 lead, but left the race with concussion, a displaced fracture of his left collarbone and a stable fracture of the C7 vertebra.

Fisher-Black spent several seasons alongside the world champion before joining Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe. Rather than viewing the accident as an inevitable dose of misfortune for a rider who has dominated much of modern cycling, the New Zealander stressed the work and expectation behind Pogacar’s presence at the Vuelta.

“I’m just gutted for Tadej really,” Fisher-Black said on the Domestique Hotseat podcast. “People think that he wins so much so he probably doesn’t even care anyway, or it’s about time he had bad luck. But everyone starts each race the same, and he wants to win just as much each day.”

Fisher-Black’s position inside the race gave him an immediate indication of the accident’s severity. The pace disappeared from the peloton as news travelled through the team cars and race radios, despite the crash occurring shortly before a climb that had been expected to produce another major GC confrontation.

“You could tell immediately, the speed went out of the bunch, because this was a decisive climb we were entering into,” he explained. “If that crash hadn’t happened, that climb would have been all out.”

The Red Bull team car passed the scene shortly afterwards, allowing the team’s sports director to relay what he had seen to the riders. “Our DS even said on the radio, as he passed the crash, it would have been 30 seconds after he crashed. He said it really doesn’t look good,” Fisher-Black continued. “And then every DS would have been saying the same thing, guys, respect the jersey, don’t attack. Probably half of that climb, five minutes later, they said he abandoned.”

Red Bull had been following UAE before being pushed further towards the inside of the peloton shortly before the accident. Fisher-Black and his teammates passed to the right of the crash and avoided becoming involved themselves. “Those days you kind of have to be a little bit grateful,” he admitted. “We could have also crashed and been on the floor 30 kilometres ago.”

Pogacar’s dominance during the opening week could make his victories appear routine, but Fisher-Black rejected any suggestion that the Slovenian simply arrived in Spain and won without sacrifice.

“It’s not like he’s so good that he just turns up without training,” he said. “He’s been on the beach for three weeks. It would have been a big investment to be here, and a lot of pressure on his shoulders as well.”

That investment had placed Pogacar in control of the Vuelta before one moment brought his campaign to an abrupt end. Fisher-Black had not yet spoken directly with his former teammate when he recorded the interview and indicated that communication remained difficult following the concussion. “I think he’s in a pretty bad way with a concussion,” he said. “I was speaking to his teammates and even they haven’t really been able to speak so much.”

Pogacar’s withdrawal handed the red jersey to Enric Mas and reopened a race that the five-time Tour de France winner had appeared increasingly likely to control. For Fisher-Black, however, the competitive consequences remained secondary to seeing a former teammate’s Vuelta end in an ambulance after seven stages at the front of the race.