Insanely dominant Pogačar has some questions to answer after failing to drop Mas at the Vuelta: 'It was my mistake'

Tadej Pogačar has three stage wins under his belt in the Vuelta a España, is already firmly in the red leader’s jersey, and has the race in his grasp. Still, it was striking that the usually dominant and all-powerful Slovenian from UAE Emirates-XRG couldn’t shake off Enric Mas of Movistar during Stage 6 on Thursday. Was a lack of water bottles the problem?

Pogačar won the sixth stage by beating Mas in a sprint. After the opening time trial on Day 1 and the stage through Andorra on Day 4, this was his third stage victory in six days. And let’s not forget that Pogačar could have won on Day 3 as well, had the stage not been canceled due to a rainstorm.

It is therefore a truly bizarre phenomenon that Pogačar’s form—and the hope that his competitors draw from the world champion’s legs—stems from a stage that he simply won. However, according to the team directors of other teams, the fact that Mas was able to catch up to him and stay with him says something about Pogi’s intentions, form, or goals.

According to Pogačar, a lack of form certainly wasn’t the problem, as he made clear after the sixth stage. He said he simply hadn’t heard Mas coming up behind him. “I was especially surprised— he flew past me like a rocket. I didn’t expect that, because I heard on the radio that I had a 40-second lead over the first pursuers. Nothing was said about Enric.”

"A little in shock," Pogačar had to regroup, and after narrowly avoiding a crash on a descent, he beat Mas in a sprint. ""I knew he knew the descent; I was glad he was there in the last ten kilometers because I didn’t have any water," he said, revealing another problem he faced in the final stretch.

In hindsight, the fact that Pogačar ran out of water in the final 23 kilometers was his own fault. Although he was still angry at the organisers after the stage. He said: “I was a little disappointed because we were riding in extreme heat”, but then he backtracked on those comments before the start of Stage 7. “I was counting on water from the neutral service, but apparently no more water stops were allowed in the final 20 kilometers.”

You might find that strange, but since Pogačar didn’t know, he didn’t just have two or three water bottles with him going into the final 20 kilometers. In fact, with just over 20 kilometers to go, he even poured a water bottle over his head. “It was my mistake, but I wasn’t dehydrated or anything. I felt fine without water, although I would have liked to have had a water bottle in the last 10 or 15 kilometers.”

The peloton watched Pogačar’s moves in Stage 6 with interest. At Netcompany INEOS, team director Imanol Erviti saw a glimmer of hope when Mas was able to catch up. “It’s hard to assess what happened; we don’t know if he was racing at 100 percent today,” the Spaniard told Cyclingnews.

"We'll see what happens in the coming days. It's good to see that Tadej is human, too, and that we can take a moment to reflect. It was surprising, because we're not used to it. But one thing we can say for sure: he still won today."