Tadej Pogacar's agent reveals Visma team car crash almost ended 2025 Tour de France of UAE leader: “It was my job to protect him so this information didn’t go out"

The story behind Tour de France victory number four for Tadej Pogacar continues to take on new layers months after the race itself. What appeared at the time to be a commanding overall win is now being revisited through fresh revelations about the final week of the 2025 edition.

Pogacar ultimately secured the yellow jersey ahead of Jonas Vingegaard, but according to the Slovenian’s agent Alex Carera, the situation inside the UAE Team Emirates - XRG camp was far more precarious than the public realised.

Speaking on the Domestique Hotseat podcast, Carera revealed that a collision involving a team car from Team Visma | Lease a Bike triggered the knee issue that complicated Pogacar’s final days in the race. “When he goes against the car of Visma, he’s really unlucky because it’s a crazy situation,” Carera said. “After that, of course, he’s worried because he doesn’t feel well.”

The incident took place before the start of stage 18 of the race, when Pogacar crashed into the back of the rival team car while riding to the start line. At the time, the moment appeared lighthearted, with the race leader joking afterwards that the Visma team had been trying to “check my brakes”.

Behind the scenes, however, the situation was becoming more serious.

Carera explained that the injury quickly became a concern for those around Pogacar during the decisive final block of racing in the Alps. “One day he’s not sure to start the stage,” Carera said when describing the uncertainty surrounding Pogacar’s condition.

In a race like the Tour de France, failing to start a stage automatically ends a rider’s participation in the event. The fact that Pogacar was unsure whether he could take the start therefore, placed his entire bid for victory in jeopardy.

Yet little of that concern was visible to the outside world at the time. Pogacar continued to defend the yellow jersey through the brutal Alpine stages before ultimately sealing his fourth Tour triumph in Paris.

The revelations also shed light on why the problem never became public during the race itself.

According to Carera, the decision was taken to keep the injury strictly within the team in order to avoid giving rivals a tactical advantage. “It was my job to protect him so this information didn’t go out,” Carera explained. “If other teams knew he had an injury, the tactics could change and become more aggressive.”

In the context of a tightly contested Tour de France, such information could have dramatically altered how the race unfolded. Rival teams would likely have attacked far more aggressively had they known the race leader was struggling physically.

Hints that Pogacar had been battling a problem during the final week of the race had already surfaced in the months following the Tour.

Team-mate Tim Wellens previously described how Pogacar had complained of significant knee pain during the final stages of the race. Those comments suggested the issue had become serious enough to concern the team internally, even as Pogacar continued racing.

Carera’s account adds a new dimension to that story by linking the injury directly to the collision with the Visma team car before stage 18.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding his condition, Pogacar managed to navigate the demanding final stages and secure another overall victory in the sport’s biggest race. “With his experience, he passed this bad time,” Carera said. “If he didn’t have that experience, maybe he loses the Tour.”

The revelation now casts the final week of Pogacar’s 2025 Tour success in a different light. What looked from the outside like a controlled ride to Paris may in reality have been a far more fragile situation inside the yellow jersey’s team.