Will Tadej Pogacar ever return to the same extraordinary level following his devastating Vuelta a Espana crash? Former professional Bob Roll has raised the possibility of lasting consequences for cycling's biggest star, drawing on the experiences of Chris Froome, Egan Bernal and Jonas Vingegaard before offering a striking prediction about the Slovenian's future.

Pogacar's pursuit of a first Vuelta title ended on 29 August when he crashed while wearing the race leader's red jersey. The UAE Team Emirates – XRG rider suffered a fractured collarbone, a stable fracture of his C7 vertebra and a concussion, undergoing surgery before his team ruled him out of the remainder of the season.

Having claimed his fifth Tour de France victory earlier in the summer, Pogacar now faces the challenge of recovering from the most serious accident of his professional career.

Roll draws on Froome and Bernal crashes before making bold Pogacar prediction

Speaking on NBC Sports Cycling's Beyond the Podium podcast, Roll reflected on the difficulties that have followed some of the sport's most serious recent accidents.

"We've seen in recent years Egan Bernal and Chris Froome have devastating crashes, maybe even Jonas Vingegaard being included in that conversation, and never getting back after these big crashes, sometimes life-threatening, to the very top of the sport," he said.

Froome has never returned to his Grand Tour-winning level following his 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné crash, while Bernal spent years rebuilding after his life-threatening training accident in January 2022. Vingegaard has since won both the 2025 Vuelta and 2026 Giro d'Italia following his serious crash at Itzulia Basque Country in 2024, making the Dane a different case from the other two riders Roll mentioned.

Despite those precedents, Roll expects Pogacar to make an emphatic return. "I don't see that, me personally, happening to Tadej Pogacar," he continued. "I think it's a challenge that he might have been looking for. And he might, I'm going to say it now, be better next year than he's ever been in his career."

At 28, Pogacar has time on his side, and Roll believes his development may not yet have reached its limit. "He's getting to his very best, physiologically speaking," the American added. "And I think there's this little extra to prove to everybody."

Pogacar crashed out of La Vuelta 2026 whilst leading

Why Bookwalter believes Pogacar has advantages in his recovery

Fellow former professional Brent Bookwalter also believes Pogacar's circumstances offer reasons for optimism, drawing on his own experience of returning from injury.

"Many of the cyclists you mentioned, these very challenging, demanding comebacks and injuries they sustained, the later it is in the career, the harder it is to come back. I'll attest to this from my own personal experience," he explained. "It's harder to reactivate the body and get back to the old level during that rehab process. The whole cycling world around you is still on warp speed."

Froome was 34 when he suffered his career-altering accident in 2019, while Pogacar celebrated his 28th birthday in September. Bookwalter also pointed to the timing of the Vuelta crash, which allowed UAE to abandon the rest of Pogacar's racing programme rather than rush him back for the World Championships or Il Lombardia.

"The team was calm, he was calm," Bookwalter said. "It was not, 'Let's try to panic and rush back and get a race day out of insecurity, just to scratch the itch and make sure that we're all still okay.' It's like, no, we're shutting it down. Do the recovery right. Do it properly."

Pogacar has since returned to training after spending approximately five weeks off the bike. He had initially hoped to compete at the European Championships in Slovenia, but ultimately decided against risking another accident before his injuries had fully healed.

"Another thing that's really good going for him, coming back to full strength or even better, is that this was at the end of the season," Bookwalter added.

Could the circumstances of Pogacar's crash help him mentally?

Beyond the physical recovery, Bookwalter also considered how Pogacar might respond mentally to the accident. The Slovenian has confirmed that he struck a large rock in the road, rather than falling because of a mistake while descending or negotiating a corner.

"This was an entirely out-of-your-control freak crash," Bookwalter said. "You could watch that video a million times and you're not going to say, 'Well, I think he made this mistake here, and that was really Tadej's technical error.' No way, man."

Bookwalter described the "selective amnesia" that allows professional cyclists to continue racing despite the dangers involved, drawing a distinction between unavoidable accidents and those resulting from a rider's own decisions.

"If he was sending it down a downhill solo breakaway, overcooked a corner and tumbled over a guardrail, I'd be like, 'Ooh, this might tweak the head a little bit or be harder to come back from mentally,'" he explained. "But no, this was a rock in the road in the peloton. Total garbage, really bad luck and unfortunate circumstances for him."

Pogacar has identified the Tour de France, World Championships and Vuelta a Espana among his principal objectives for 2027. The Spanish Grand Tour remains the only one missing from his palmarès, and his August crash denied him the chance to pursue that final title from the race lead.

Although Pogacar is back on the bike, there has been no competitive test of his recovery. UAE has yet to confirm his opening race of 2027, with his programme expected to take shape in the coming months following the premature end to his season.