VIDEO | The moment Tadej Pogacar almost crashed during hectic stage 17 moment at Tour de France
CyclingThursday, 23 July 2026 at 13:45
Tadej Pogacar may have seen his 2026 Tour de France dreams flash right before his eyes on Wednesday. A new video has emerged of a crash that took place early in stage 17's breakaway day to Voiron as it appears that the yellow jersey came close to being involved and potentially hitting the deck.
Early in the stage, carmeras cut to a crash on the right side of the road as several riders were caught up including Fred Wright, Tom Pidcock and Dylan van Baarle among others. All riders picked themselves up and were able to continue and re-join the peloton.
Viewers quickly saw that no other general classification riders had been involved, but a new video has emerged that showed just how close the coming together came to re-shaping the Tour de France.
In the video, the peloton is seeing racing by before Wright and others crashed for an unknown reason. With Pogacar to his left, Wright falls towards his right side, enabling the Slovenian to get out of harm's way as several riders took a tumble behind.
The incident captured a 'lucky' escape for the Slovenian, who leads the general classification by 4:32 with just four stages remaining of La Grand Boucle. With Jonas Vingegaard crashing out on Sunday's stage 15, the GC leaders will have to be on high alert over the next few days in their bid to make it to Paris.
Tadej Pogačar narrowly escaped the crash today… I totally missed it. 😬
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucxsronald) July 22, 2026
Captured by amycoquillahowe pic.twitter.com/cQjjFhxMI5
Yates suffers day to forget with illness
Meanwhile, Pogacar's teammate Adam Yates was suffering from illness and finished 26:36 down on winner Jasper Philipsen.
UAE sent Tim Wellens back to help the climber pace the final period of the stage as Tadej Pogacar and Isaac del Toro remained in the peloton. Yates, however, looked to struggle through to the finish line.
In the aftermath, Pogacar and his team echoed their support for Yates as it was revealed that he had been vomiting the day before the stage and suffering physically. However, he had recovered slightly before the stage.
“Adam struggled like crazy yesterday, but he looked much better this morning. It was just such a tough stage, even for fit riders," Pogacar said after the stage.
"When Adam fell behind, we decided to have Tim wait for him and ride him to the finish. There’s a chance he’ll recover from this and be in good shape on Friday and Saturday.”
He added: “I could have a day like Adam did today. Every little detail can affect you and turn things around, so it’s nice to be in the lead, but everything can change.”
Gavin QuinnCycling Journalist
Gavin Quinn is a cycling journalist and ultra-distance cyclist with a BA in Journalism from Dublin City University. Formerly the Press & Communications Officer for Cycling Ireland, Gavin has worked inside the national team at the World Championships and has reported for the Irish Mirror, Mirror UK, and The42.
His expertise is backed by elite-level access, having interviewed stars like Sam Bennett and Ben Healy, as well as immense personal endurance. In 2025, he completed a 12,000km solo cycle from Ireland to Vietnam, following a 4,600km tour across Europe. From the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix to the gradients of the Tourmalet, Gavin’s writing focuses on the "romance and brutality" of the sport. Having visited 50+ countries, he brings a global, cultural perspective to his coverage of the pro peloton for CyclingUpToDate.
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- You can't handle the truth, so don't even talk about it. Capish?mus-musculuspeedypogigonzales23-07-2026
- First of all, sending only one person would never be credible. Any team would claim procedure wasn’t adhered to and call for invalidation. Also, a single person would be too susceptible to manipulation. That’s just for starters. Police, debt collectors, justice representatives and the like also never go about official duties solo. As for teams, well sorry, if you kniw only top X riders woukd get tested, that’s a blank check for the rest of the team to do exactly as they want at night so to make sure the team is not being used for the leader, at LEAST one other random rider needs to be tested simultaneously. Can people sometimes think things over a bit before treating everything like some theoretical playground game?Mistermaumau23-07-2026
- > Imagine how many tight-lipped competent and available personnel would be required to descend on 10 teams simultaneously? You would need 10 persons only. Taking blood sample is not rocket science and any nurse or doctor can do that. Also nobody is talking about taking samples from whole teams but only from TOP10 riders fighting for GC.averagecyclist23-07-2026
- Due to the high bar of the evidence needed for testing, i expect Jonas and Pogi to text positive otherwise ITA is just bullshittingabstractengineer23-07-2026
- Ahhh poor Pogiboy. Didn’t see you moaning too much when it was western fans doing that against a western rider, which, using your methodology and analysis must be more than enough proof for you that dumb fans are not biased towards any one rider or his nationality but just general dyckheads. If you don’t have the level to separate those from the general population you’re just showing how desperate you must be for things to fit into the narrative you’ve chosen as truth, am sure you can think of which personality that seems to resemble most.Mistermaumau23-07-2026
- Firstly, seems like you are confusing ITA and AFLD where a biais would be more believable, secondly as I already suggested, any French bias would have seen testing of DT and RE instead of JV and TP. Moving on to big brain Plugge, obviously not very versed in the art of secrecy that is a prerequisite for this type of operation. Am already surprised TP was tested a whole 3 hours after JV and pretty sure by then someone at UAE was already aware something was on, you can’t keep such an event (2am ) from not being mentioned by someone to another and then another. Imagine how many tight-lipped competent and available personnel would be required to descend on 10 teams simultaneously? Imagine nobody noticing any preparations (very discreet gathering of known/unknown (if unknown once, certainly not next time) faces in one place. Imagine teams not noticing or sharing almost simultaneous requests for rider locations. Imagine it’s that easy to reach riders’ rooms anywhere in the middle of the night without being noticed. Remember how Lance could still dupe controllers only seconds away from him, read about how they have to test urine in tennis now because players discovered how to make as if they were peeing their current output, watch films in the line of Gattaca, keep informed on medical, mafia and business developments and stop being naive. Why would cycling suddenly be the only clean sport and that just when money is finally becoming interesting, why would « manufacturers » avoid cycling for sales, scruples?Mistermaumau23-07-2026
- Yeah, half an hour of TT is hardly comparable to over a dozen hours of tough long climbing. That’s like tweaking an Ironman down to 10 minutes of swimming. GTs should be including more time when riders have to perform on their own.Mistermaumau23-07-2026
- That’s not a sentenceMistermaumau23-07-2026
- I had another debate elsewhere following on from MM’s complaint which got some interesting comments, unfortunately it got closed just as it started getting interesting. 2 things I’ll carry over that I couldn’t suggest and haven’t been mentioned anywhere I checked: Firstly, the PS biais, sorry but that’s just not credible. If anyone up there had wanted to influence things like Trump tried (and failed) at Fifa (incidentally, did he really stoop so low to try to convince Rodri is his or was that a case of mistaken identity?) they would have tested Remco and Del Toro instead. Somebody’s best shot at proving being woken at night leads to accidents was a statistical argument regarding an increase of traffic incidents the day after clocks go forward. So firstly, assuming nobody adapted by going to bed earlier and secondly denying anyone might be driving differently because at some point they realised they’re later than expected or didn’t stick to their usual routine perfectly. As for today’s title, probably best if DT and PS leave the testing of Remco to the ITA, ride your own races guys, stop focusing on others, and DT, if Carapaz tries anything, remember your Giro.Mistermaumau23-07-2026
- Something not quite right in this story. They knew who you were or you stopped to exchange numbers? Obviously now you have theirs do they are identifiable and the text proves they knew there was an incident so technically they rode away from an accident without due paperwork. Not hard to deal with this correctly before telling the whole world of a tiny incident no worse than any cyclist has experienced. Always a bit weird when people get a voice to recount what would interest nobody should it come from citizen X.Mistermaumau23-07-2026
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