Miguel Ángel López has issued a statement, including an apology, after his apparently bad-tempered withdrawal for La Vuelta on Saturday’s penultimate stage.
The Colombian, who had taken a brilliant victory on
Thursday on arguably the queen stage of the race, began Saturday’s stage 20 in
3rd place overall.
However, when he missed a key split on the third climb of
the day – Alto de Mougás with just over 50km remaining – he found himself in a
chasing group behind other general classification men.
Movistar management told him to stop chasing as the team had Enric Mas ahead and he was cementing his 2nd place overall. López was filmed off his bike speaking on the phone before climbing into a team car and abandoning, something he has now said he was sorry for.
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"As most of you have seen, the moment when the group
split was a difficult situation, hard to resolve, López said in a statement
issued by his team on Saturday night.
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“We saw ourselves getting into a difficult position when
some of the best in the GC went ahead of us: Bahrain played its cards well, and
it's hard to close a gap like that, even if it's small, at this point of the
Vuelta.
"Legs are so tired, the level is so high, and
obviously, no-one was going to help us out closing that small gap in that
moment. It took long for us to react. There were so many factors involved and,
in the end, it's sad to see La Vuelta ending for me this way.
"I want to apologise to my teammates. We are a
reduced group, only five left in La Vuelta, with only three of them focused on
team duties, and they rode their hearts out for us; they gave their 100 per
cent.
"It's been a tough situation but it ended up
happening like that. I decided to stop fighting a battle which was all but
lost. Now I just want to say to the fans, the sponsors, the La Vuelta
organisers – I'm sorry for what happened and for how things went today."
The only two riders ahead of him overall this morning - Primož
Roglič (Jumbo Visma) and López’s Movistar team mate Enric Mas – were in the
group ahead of him today after the favourites’ group split. Also present in
that front group was Jack Haig, the Australian riding with Bahrain Victorious,
and his team mate Gino Mäder as well as Adam Yates of Ineos Grenadiers.
Haig, Yates and Mäder were all in the process of passing López
overall as their group had four minutes on the Colombian’s group with 30km to
go.
And though López led the chase after them, he was told by
his team to end his pursuit. In response, he stopped and abandoned the race despite
his team mate, Imanol Erviti, and Movistar’s head of performance, Patxi Vila,
trying to talk him into continuing.
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