Vuelta a España: Geraint Thomas and Primoz Roglič patched up after crashing

Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) both crashed on a slippery stage 2 of the Vuelta a España, although neither of the two red jersey contenders lost time, nor appeared seriously injured.

The potential pitfalls of the second stage in Barcelona, where thunderstorms had brought the first rains in weeks, had been signalled from the start, with organisers’ agreeing with riders’ requests to take general classification timings ahead of the entrance to the twisting Montjuic circuit with 9km to go.

That may have taken some of the stress out of a technical and hilly finale but it didn’t remove the danger altogether, and Thomas and Roglič both ended up sliding across the sodden tarmac with just over 30km to go.

It was a UAE Team Emirates rider who appeared to fall first on the inside line through a roundabout, with Roglič quickly going down alongside him and Thomas then unable to avoid the collision.

After being seen to by the team doctor beyond the finish, Thomas emerged from the Ineos bus with a dressing and bandage around his right knee, before explaining what had happened.

“Yeah, [I'm feeling] okay. Its just unfortunate that [a rider from] UAE and [Primož] Roglič came down in front of me. I just hit my knee but I'm all good,” Thomas said.

“We were at the front anyway so I'm not sure I even left the peloton. I was straight up and got going. The boys knew, the radios were a bit dodgy so I'm not sure if the car knew but the boys were all around me and it was all good.”

As for Roglič, the three-time Vuelta winner was up and on his way even quicker. His team told GCN at the finish that he had suffered abrasions on the left-hand side of his body, but appeared to generally ok.

That wasn’t the case for one of the numerous riders to crash, the 20-year-old Scottish talent Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich), who suffered a suspected broken collarbone and has abandoned his first Grand Tour.

Thomas referenced the DSM team as he explained why the run-in to the 9km-to-go marker was still chaotic in itself. Onley’s team had the red jersey on the shoulders of Lorenzo Milesi and had an interest in chasing the attackers before that point, one of whom, Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost) ended up taking that red jersey.

Meanwhile, Jumbo-Visma riders as well as Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) were seen anxiously urging the rest of the bunch to slow down in the aftermath of Roglič’s crash.

“The teams just wanted to slow down as we were going fast into roundabouts and it was super slippery. I think as a group everyone just wanted to take it easier but there's always someone that wants to go faster, especially when there's a breakaway,” said Thomas.

“Even though the time's taken at 9km to go, DSM still wanted it back and other guys wanted to go for the stage - everyone has their own ambitions so it’s never going to go slow.

"I think it's sensible [to encourage riders to slow down], when the roads are that slippery. I totally get riders want to go for the stage but do it in the right way; don't go full gas into roundabouts. I think there were crashes at more or less every roundabout. It's more just trying to look after each other, at the end of the day this is all our jobs. Yeah, of course you want to do well in the race but it's not worth, in my view, crashing, but that's just the way racing is and always will be."

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