Tadej Pogacar has suffered a fractured wrist after crashing in Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège race which was won by the defending champion, Remco Evenepoel.
The pre-race favourite, Pogacar has dominated the Spring Classics this year, winning the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold and La Flèche Wallonne among others. The Slovenian, who won this race in 2021, was expected to battle Evenepoel for victory but was involved in a crash with Mikkel Honoré 84.5km (52.5 miles) into the race.
After his collision with Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost) on a downhill stretch around a third of the way into the 258km race, Pogacar was attended to by the UAE-TeamEmirates medical director, Adrian Rotunno. Pogacar’s teammates initially stopped and waited to see if their team leader was fit to continue, before returning to the race.
Rotunno later confirmed that Pogacar would undergo hand surgery in Genk, Belgium this week. The two-time Tour de France champion is planning to regain his title from Jonas Vingegaard in this year’s race, which begins on 1 July, but this injury setback will seriously disrupt his pre-race preparations.
Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) attacked with 34km left of the hilly race to go, with Ineos Grenadiers’ Tom Pidcock joining him in the breakaway.
Evenepoel attacked again on the next climb to leave his British rival behind and reached the top of the final climb, Côte de la Roche aux Faucons, with a lead of one minute, 18 seconds. The 23-year-old swept down the final descent in the rain, becoming the first rider to win back-to-back races here since Michele Bartoli in 1998.
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Pidcock held on for second place after beating Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) of Colombia in a sprint to the finish, more than a minute behind Evenepoel, while Ireland’s Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) was fourth.
