UAE Team Emirates performance coach Inigo San Milan said the main reason Tadei Pogachar cracked badly in the Col de la Rose was due to a fall in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which had a major impact on his training schedule after breaking his wrist He said this was due to.

In an interview with L'Equipe, the Basque doctor and performance director said that the injury at Liège-Bastogne-Liège hampered Pogachar's second important training block.

After losing more than 90 seconds to race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) in Tuesday's time trial, Pogachar suffered a near 6-minute stall on Wednesday's ultra-long course, the Col de la Rose: "It's over, it's over."

However, Saint-Milan also insisted that running second overall in the Tour de France with only one block of training was a success. He also argued that Pogachar's peak in the spring classics, which led to victories in the Tour de Flanders, the Amstel Gold Race, and La Flèche Wallonne, did not affect his performance in the Tour de France.

Asked if the impact of the wrist injury on the Slovenian's training program was enough to explain why Pogachar suffered so much, St. Millan told L'Équipe, "That is being worked out now."

"I don't know if that's the only reason, but it's certainly the main reason."

"Taddei did two big blocks of training before the Tour. However, a crash in Liège prevented him from doing a second block."

"He was not able to do a second block.

"He broke his wrist on April 23 and could not ride his bike until May 25.

"His home trainer is good, but not good enough. He missed three weeks of training in May and only three weeks in June.

"I knew I would push him to the limit; no one has ever won the Tour with less than a month of training."

San Millán said that despite the setback, the team decided to send Pogachar to the Tour because "he is the best athlete in the world. But he needed a second training session to last three weeks."

The UAE Team Emirates coach said he did not believe that the Slovenian being in his best condition at the Tour of Flanders had a negative impact on his performance at the Tour. He said, "His best numbers ever were after Flanders.

However, San Milano spent a week doing lactate tests on Topogachar and found the data to be correct. He was improving physically, and he proved it in the Ardennes Classic. However, his crash in Liège meant that he was "back to square one."

Saint-Milan did not deny Pogachar a shot at a stage win in Vosges on Saturday, but insisted that running second in the Tour with one block of training was already a great thing.

"A normal rider would have finished 15th at best. It looks like a big loss, but in reality this is a huge performance."[31