Wout van Aert, riding near the front, called it different from the day's other crashes — full racing intensity, pure bad luck, no loss of focus on Pogačar's part. «I've often been in his shoes—sometimes you just have bad luck,» he said. UAE Team Emirates-XRG manager Joxean Fernández Matxin went further: "It's no one's responsibility. It's simply one of those things that happens in cycling, unfortunately." A rider with a 3:50 lead and a clean Grand Tour record lost his Vuelta not to a rival or a mistake, but to a rock a broadcast camera almost missed.