Tadej Pogacar loses one more teammate as Marc Soler misses time cut - "I couldn’t do more. I tried, I vomited, and I tried to get to the finish inside the time limit, but it wasn’t possible"

Marc Soler missed the time cut by 15 minutes in stage 16 of the Tour de France. Soler was infected with a stomach bug on Sunday. He was feeling unwell since the start of the race and vomited several times during the stage.

Soler had a rough start. He could not keep up with the peloton after 70km of racing. Soler crossed the line in Foix 57 minutes behind the stage winner Hugo Houle but the time limit, imposed at 16 percent, was 42 minutes. “Since Sunday night, I haven’t felt very good. I didn’t recover, and today at the start, I was bad. I wanted to vomit every time the pace quickened,” Soler told Cyclingweekly.

Despite his health, he tried his best to finish within the time limit, but his health continued to deteriorate. “When I began. I couldn’t do more. I tried, I vomited, and I tried to get to the finish inside the time limit, but it wasn’t possible. I tried to finish, I think every rider in the team is important. The best is to try, but it wasn’t to be,” concluded Soler.

His withdrawal means Pogacar has one less teammate to depend on for support. He has already lost George Bennett and Vegard Stake Laengen to Covid-19. Pogacar will have to manage with only four teammates.