UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Tadej Pogacar . Reuters
UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Tadej Pogacar . Reuters
UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Tadej Pogacar . Reuters
UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Tadej Pogacar . Reuters

Tour de France 2025: Crash scare for 'beaten up' Tadej Pogacar as Jonas Abrahamsen wins Stage 11 thriller


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Tour de France favourite Tadej Pogacar suffered a high-speed crash towards the end of Wednesday's Stage 11 that saw Jonas Abrahamsen take the honours after a thrilling photo finish with Mauro Schmid.

UAE Team Emirates-XRA rider Pogacar hit the deck on the Cote de Pech descent after skidding along the tarmac with 4km to go but was able to rejoin the peloton – including rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel – who sportingly waited for his return having not lost any time.

Pogacar struggled to put his chain on and had looked as if he would lose 30 to 40 seconds. “I'm quite OK,” said the Slovenian. “A bit beaten up but we've been through worse days. It was a hectic day from start to finish. Thanks to the peloton who waited … big respect to everyone in front.”

The three-time champion remains in second place, 29 seconds behind Irishman Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) who retains the overall lead and yellow jersey that goes with it, while there was no change at all in the general classification top 10.

It was a first Grand Tour win for Abrahamsen and his Uno-X Mobility team coming despite the Norwegian breaking his collarbone just a few weeks before the Tour, making this success even more spectacular – and unexpected.

Abrahamsen spent the entire day among the top 5 riders before a finale that saw him hold off the challenge of Schmid (Team Jayco-AlUla) by the slimmest of margins, with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) coming home third.

The Dutch star's late surge to catch the leading duo fell just short and had to settle for a place on the podium which had been expected ti finish in a bunch sprint.

The GC group, including Pogacar and yellow jersey-holder Healy, finished the 156.8-km ride around Toulouse 3 mins 28 secs back.

“I broke my collarbone four weeks ago in the Belgium Tour. I was crying in the hospital because I thought I wasn’t riding the Tour de France,” Abrahamsen, 29, said after the stage.

“The day after I was on the home trainer and hoping I could go to the Tour. Every day, I did everything I could to come back. So, to be here having won a stage of the Tour de France is amazing.

“[Schmid] was so strong today from the start. I tried and it was so difficult to pass him, but I was thinking ‘I have to win this stage, I have to’, and then I got a wheel in front and that was so nice.

“I spent 10 days in the mountain jersey last year and wasn't able to win a stage so to do it today is so nice. It's a dream come true.

“It's so nice to be with a team from the start in 2017 and see the team growing every year. I'm so proud of the team. They believed in me to come to the Tour de France and to win a stage so it's so nice.

“I knew I had a pretty good sprint, and we had been out for a long time. In the end, I was hoping to take him in the sprint.

“We were with very strong guys but never with more than two-and-a-half minutes, I think. We worked so hard to get the gap all day and it’s so nice to get the victory now.”

Healy will lead the peloton into the Pyrenees on Thursday where the first real mountains will test his and everyone's legs on the legendary beyond category Hautacam climb.

General classification after Stage 11

  1. Ben Healy (Ire/EF Education-EasyPost) 41 hrs 1 min 13 secs
  2. Tadej Pogacar (Slo/UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +29secs
  3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel/Soudal Quick-Step) +1min 29 secs
  4. Jonas Vingegaard (Den/Visma-Lease a Bike) +1min 46 secs
  5. Matteo Jorgenson (US/Visma-Lease a Bike) +2mins 6 secs

Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

UAE squad

Humaira Tasneem (c), Chamani Senevirathne (vc), Subha Srinivasan, NIsha Ali, Udeni Kuruppuarachchi, Chaya Mughal, Roopa Nagraj, Esha Oza, Ishani Senevirathne, Heena Hotchandani, Keveesha Kumari, Judith Cleetus, Chavi Bhatt, Namita D’Souza.

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
  • 2018: Formal work begins
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  • November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
  • October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
  • November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Company name: baraka
Started: July 2020
Founders: Feras Jalbout and Kunal Taneja
Based: Dubai and Bahrain
Sector: FinTech
Initial investment: $150,000
Current staff: 12
Stage: Pre-seed capital raising of $1 million
Investors: Class 5 Global, FJ Labs, IMO Ventures, The Community Fund, VentureSouq, Fox Ventures, Dr Abdulla Elyas (private investment)

The specs
  • Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
  • Power: 640hp
  • Torque: 760nm
  • On sale: 2026
  • Price: Not announced yet
Specs

Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request

The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting

2. Prayer

3. Hajj

4. Shahada

5. Zakat 

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm

Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh117,059

Ferrari 12Cilindri specs

Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12

Power: 819hp

Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm

Price: From Dh1,700,000

Available: Now

The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.

Part three: an affection for classic cars lives on

Read part two: how climate change drove the race for an alternative 

Read part one: how cars came to the UAE

THE SPECS

Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder

Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)

Power: 141bhp 

Torque: 250Nm 

Price: Dh64,500

On sale: Now

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Our legal columnist

Name: Yousef Al Bahar

Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994

Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers

Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas

Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa

Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong

Rating: 3/5

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

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Ticket prices

General admission Dh295 (under-three free)

Buy a four-person Family & Friends ticket and pay for only three tickets, so the fourth family member is free

Buy tickets at: wbworldabudhabi.com/en/tickets

Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
  1. Join parent networks
  2. Look beyond school fees
  3. Keep an open mind
Quick pearls of wisdom

Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”

Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.” 

The specs
 
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
If you go

The flights
Etihad (etihad.com) flies from Abu Dhabi to Luang Prabang via Bangkok, with a return flight from Chiang Rai via Bangkok for about Dh3,000, including taxes. Emirates and Thai Airways cover the same route, also via Bangkok in both directions, from about Dh2,700.
The cruise
The Gypsy by Mekong Kingdoms has two cruising options: a three-night, four-day trip upstream cruise or a two-night, three-day downstream journey, from US$5,940 (Dh21,814), including meals, selected drinks, excursions and transfers.
The hotels
Accommodation is available in Luang Prabang at the Avani, from $290 (Dh1,065) per night, and at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp and Resort from $1,080 (Dh3,967) per night, including meals, an activity and transfers.

Gully Boy

Director: Zoya Akhtar
Producer: Excel Entertainment & Tiger Baby
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt, Kalki Koechlin, Siddhant Chaturvedi​​​​​​​
Rating: 4/5 stars

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Results

1. New Zealand Daniel Meech – Fine (name of horse), Richard Gardner – Calisto, Bruce Goodin - Backatorps Danny V, Samantha McIntosh – Check In. Team total First round: 200.22; Second round: 201.75 – Penalties 12 (jump-off 40.16 seconds) Prize €64,000

2. Ireland Cameron Hanley – Aiyetoro, David Simpson – Keoki, Paul Kennedy – Cartown Danger Mouse, Shane Breen – Laith. Team total 200.25/202.84 – P 12 (jump-off 51.79 – P17) Prize €40,000

3. Italy Luca Maria Moneta – Connery, Luca Coata – Crandessa, Simone Coata – Dardonge, Natale Chiaudani – Almero. Team total 130.82/198.-4 – P20. Prize €32,000

At a glance

Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

 

Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year

 

Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month

 

Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30 

 

Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse

 

Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth

 

Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances

Various Artists 
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
​​​​​​​

THE BIO

Bio Box

Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul

Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader

Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Favorite food: seafood

Favorite place to travel: Lebanon

Favorite movie: Braveheart

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Updated: July 16, 2025, 4:31 PM`