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Pogačar's clavicle surgery isn't waiting on the fracture — it's waiting on his brain. The displaced collarbone and stable C7 fracture are the kind of injuries that could be managed conservatively, but concussion precautions are overriding that option and holding him off the operating table with no timeline given.
He's been moved from Hospital Universitario Francesc De Borja de Gandía toward Barcelona for surgical evaluation, but UAE Team Emirates medical director Adrian Rotunno's own update confirms the delay isn't about the shoulder or neck — it's concussion protocol. That's a different hierarchy than the usual Grand Tour crash story: normally surgeons work around a head knock, here the head knock is setting the entire schedule. First Grand Tour abandon of his career, and the injury nobody's tracking a recovery date for is the one his team called clean of neurological fallout.
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