Broken wrist, broken dream and worry in view of the Tour: Tadej Pogacar left Liège-Bastogne-Liège on a fall which may have deprived him of a rare hat-trick in the Ardennes classics, and above all plunged into anguish at just over two months from the start of the Tour de France.
Well before the halfway point of the "
Doyenne des Classiques
", of which he was the favorite with the Belgian winner Remco Evenepoel, the Slovenian prodigy fell "
at high speed
" according to his team, after hitting the Danish Mikkel Honoré victim of a puncture in front of him.
“
A terrifying fall
”, said his teammate Marc Hirschi while Evenepoel, who would win the race a few hours later, said he heard “
a horrible noise
”.
Very quickly, the leader of the UAE formation made it known that he would not get back on the bike.
And, even before the end of the race, his team communicated “
bad news
”.
“
Tadej suffers from multiple fractures in his left hand.
In particular a fracture of the scaphoid which will require an intervention and another of the lunate (another bone of the wrist, Editor's note) which will not have to be operated on, ”said
the general manager of his training, the Italian Mauro Gianetti.
Read alsoCycling: masterful, Remco Evenepoel doubles the bet on Liège-Bastogne-Liège
Operation Sunday night
Pogacar was to be operated on Sunday evening at the Genk hospital, in Belgian Limburg, not far from Liège, by a hand specialist.
After his successes at the Amstel Gold Race the previous weekend and at the Flèche wallonne on Wednesday, the 24-year-old rider dreamed of a hat-trick in the Ardennes that only two riders have managed in history, the Italian Davide Rebellin in 2004 and the Belgian Philippe Gilbert in 2011.
"
Too early to talk about the Tour
"
But as Bastogne approaches, Pogacar may have lost more than the "
Doyenne of the classics
" because his Liège misadventure could be a famous setback sixty-nine days before the start of the Grande Boucle, July 1 in Bilbao.
The double winner of the Tour (2020, 2021) embarked on a reconquest operation after being overtaken last year in Paris by the Dane Jonas Vingegaard.
“
It's too early to talk about the Tour.
We must wait to see how the operation takes place before considering the rest.
Hope everything goes well.
Fingers crossed that Tadej can recover quickly
,” added Gianetti.
Pogacar had planned to observe a period of rest after his exceptional spring, “
just to enjoy a little
”, he had indicated on the evening of the Amstel.
With a total of nineteen days of racing punctuated by twelve successes, notably in Paris-Nice and above all in the Tour of Flanders, the Monegasque resident thought he would take advantage of the Riviera sun to recharge his batteries before resuming in early May with a training course at altitude then the Tour of Slovenia (from June 14 to 18) before heading to the Spanish Basque Country for the Grand Départ of the Tour.
Pogacar's fall is a reminder that even a rider reputed to be very skilled on a bike and who rarely falls (his previous fall dates back to the Clasica San Sebastian, at the end of July 2022, an event won by Remco Evenepoel) is not immune to a misadventure.
Irresistible in recent weeks, Pogacar hopes to avoid an ordeal comparable to that experienced by Julian Alaphilippe, seriously injured a year ago in this same race.
The reigning double world champion had crashed into a tree at full speed, getting up with a pneumothorax, a fractured shoulder blade and several broken sides.
Since then, the Soudal-Quick Step runner has lost his luster.
“
Julian took a long time to recover.
I hope it won't be the case with Tadej,
” said Gianetti, immediately relativizing: “
This kind of incident, unfortunately, is part of cycling sport and it could have been worse.
»