Tadej Poga\u010dar blasted Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a officials Thursday after he said a race officials refused to give him a water bottle in the final 15km of a brutally hot stage that nearly ended with the race leader crashing out.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar survived the white-knuckle descent off the treacherous Puerto El Bartolo and then beat Enric Mas in a two-up sprint, but the red jersey was still irritated at the finish after going without water during the decisive finale.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then when we came to 15k to go, I asked for the bottle. I\u2019m looking for water but there was no response from the commissar or organization car,\u201d Pogacar said. \u201cI was a bit disappointed there because we are racing such heat and if you don\u2019t have a bottle in the last 15-20 minutes it\u2019s a big pain in the ass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Temperatures soared to 34\u00b0C (93\u00b0F), with gusting winds and heavy humidity battering the peloton all day before the upper half of the final climb was raced over dusty, exposed gravel roads.<\/p>\n
The UCI race jury confirmed Wednesday evening that the feed zone would end with 20km remaining on Thursday\u2019s stage.<\/p>\n
That cutoff effectively shut down feeding as Poga\u010dar and the peloton came off the final climb, with roughly 20km remaining across the descent and run to the finish line.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar was seen grabbing a final bottle near the foot of the climb and pouring water over his head before tackling the steep gravel ascent.<\/p>\n
There had been speculation that Poga\u010dar might have suffered from dehydration or a hunger flat when Mas dramatically closed him down near the summit, but Poga\u010dar did not cite either as a factor.<\/p>\n
UAE Emirates-XRG sport manager Joxean Fern\u00e1ndez Matx\u00edn also told Velo<\/em> at the finish that he heard nothing from Poga\u010dar during the stage to suggest he was suffering a bonk or struggling for a lack of hydration.<\/p>\n Instead, Poga\u010dar said confusion over the time gaps left him completely unaware that Mas was bearing down on him.<\/p>\n \u201cI really didn\u2019t know that Mas is there because I heard a group of favorites is 40 then 50 seconds behind, so I was, just say, OK, I need to come to the finish of this climb,\u201d he said. \u201cI also didn\u2019t know the climb very well, so I think I faced it this all wrong, and then he came like triple speed next to me on just on the top and I was.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s going on? Is this a spectator coming past me?\u201d<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar quickly realized it was no fan on the gravel summit.<\/p>\n \u201cI quickly realized that for sure he knows this climb and he put a strong effort,\u201d he said. \u201cSo yeah, I was immediately focused on him there and I knew that he\u2019s on a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n The drama was not finished. UAE officials confirmed to Velo<\/em> that Poga\u010dar did not recon the climb before the race.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar narrowly avoided disaster on the brutally steep, narrow descent when he veered off course before somehow keeping his bike upright and scrambling back onto the pavement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very steep indeed. I knew it\u2019s a very dangerous downhill and steep road. But you know when people tell you it\u2019s a risk, but you can\u2019t really know until you\u2019re there. This downhill was not really suitable for taking good lines and you just brake as much as you can. And then he did a small mistake and I passed him. I was thinking,\u201d he said. \u201cOK, I go my own lines down and yeah, it was a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar dodged a bullet and narrowly missed crashing that could have ended his bid to win this Vuelta.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad and happy that I stayed there on the bike, that could be easily a big crash for me. I\u2019m just happy I was back on the roads quick and that was not too long.\u201d<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar and Mas regrouped after the scare and drove together to the finish, where Poga\u010dar won the stage and Mas climbed into second overall at 3:34.<\/p>\n Never a dull day at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/vuelta-a-espana\/pogacar-denied-water-bottle-vuelta\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2291722841-scaled.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated August 27, 2026 11:23AM Tadej Poga\u010dar blasted Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a officials Thursday after he said a race officials refused to give him a water bottle in the final 15km of a brutally hot stage that nearly ended with the race leader crashing out. Poga\u010dar survived the white-knuckle descent off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2116480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Is this a spectator?\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"Enric](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2292325761.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
A near-miss on wild descent<\/h2>\n
![\"Poga\u010dar](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2292322191.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")