Tour of Spain: Rainy Vuelta opener: Crashes instead of an exchange of blows

Chaotic conditions instead of a battle for seconds at the rainy start of the 78th Tour of Spain: The first weekend of the Vuelta did not lead to the first battle of the stars as hoped, but to a few crashes in the constant rain.

Three-time overall winner Primoz Roglic (Slovenia) and former Tour champion Geraint Thomas from Great Britain also crashed on the second stage over 181.2 kilometres from Mataró to Barcelona. The stage win went to the Dane Andreas Kron, while the red jersey went to the Italian Andrea Piccolo.

The opening race on Saturday was a virtual washout. During the team time trial, pouring rain and the onset of darkness made for borderline conditions. "This is totally ridiculous and a disgrace. We didn't see anything. The organisers should know what can happen," grumbled last year's winner Remco Evenepoel.

Third stage with mountain finish in Andorra

By finishing fourth with his Soudal-Quick-Step team on Saturday, the Belgian at least gained an advantage over Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) and Roglic, as the favoured Jumbo-Visma team lost 26 seconds to the Evenepoel team after technical problems. The German Bora-hansgrohe team with Lennard Kämna and Emanuel Buchmann was even four seconds faster than the Vingegaard team.

Under pressure from the riders, the organisation neutralised the final climb to Montjuic and took the times for the overall classification nine kilometres before the finish. As a result, Evenepoel and Co. took no more risks in the finale and crossed the finish line more than six minutes behind.

On Monday, however, the stars will be challenged when the first mountain finish awaits them in Andorra after 158.8 kilometres on the third stage.

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