Tadej Pogacar won his fourth Tour de France last summer, just one of his many trophies lifted this year. However, he nearly abandoned it near the end of the race due to a knee injury, as he recently revealed recently in Siol.sl: "The day after the stage with the finish on Mont Ventoux (stage 16), I had problems with my knee and I started to have doubts about whether I would be able to continue at all, whether I would be able to endure the queen stage".
And this week, his teammate Tim Wellens revealed just how serious the situation was: "I think he mentioned, so we can say it now", revealed in an interview with L'Equipe. "On the Valence stage, he told me, 'Tim, we have a problem, my knee is killing me'. So much so that he went all the way to the doctor's car to get checked out. He went to the hospital after the race for tests, they found inflammation or something like that, and nobody knew! I was convinced it would leak out. He was in a lot of pain, we had doubts about his ability to finish".
"We even considered him abandoning the race. On the team bus, we could see his body wasn't well, he was all fluid, he'd gained weight", Wellens said (via CyclingNews).
Pogacar failed to win any of the last eight stages, and some commentators criticised his defensive tactics and lack of attacking against Jonas Vingegaard in those stages. "Everyone was wondering why he wasn't attacking, which was understandable. Afterwards, we were worried about him physically, but mentally, I was surprised to read that he was eager to get home. Because, between us, we were really having a great time."
After the race, Pogacar said in interviews that he felt tired, and it is no wonder he chose to miss La Vuelta a España weeks later.