'I cracked myself': Pogacar pays price for disrupted Tour preparation

PARIS : Tadej Pogacar, beaten by Jonas Vingegaard to the Tour de France title for the second year in a row, paid a heavy price for a truncated preparation as a sudden dip in form in the third week cost him a third yellow jersey on the Champs Elysees.

The Slovenian, who suffered a wrist fracture in April, came into the Tour unsure of his form.

After two weeks of going toe to toe with his Danish rival, he was crushed by the defending champion in Tuesday's time trial before cracking in brutal fashion in Wednesday's final Alpine stage on the lung-busting Col de la Loze.

Vingegaard said his Jumbo-Visma team had a plan to make Pogacar crack, but the 2020 and 2021 champion saw it differently.

"The only moment they tried to crack me was on Marie Blanque (in the Pyrenees in the opening block of racing). He was so much better and the next day they tried to crack me completely but I won the stage (in Cauterets Cambasque)," Pogacar, who finished second overall, a massive 7:29 off the pace, told a news conference.

"After that I just cracked myself alone. Nobody cracked me it was all on me, nobody did anything to me. It was me and my bad feeling. I cracked myself."

Pogacar could not train as he wanted in May and only resumed competitive racing in late June at his national championship while Vingegaard's preparations went smoothly with an altitude training camp and the Criterium du Dauphine.

"Overall this Tour was great for the team. We came for overall victory but people close to me said after Joux-Plane and the Grand Colombier (at the end of the second week) that I didn't look very good," Pogacar, who won the Paris-Nice stage race and the Tour of Flanders Monument classic in the spring, explained.

"I didn't notice, I was going day by day