Eddie Dunbar and his Team Jayco AlUla squad have suffered a very bad start to La Vuelta after most of the riders crashed on the wet course during this evening's stage 1 TTT in Barcelona.
After one of the riders, leading, came down first in the wet, as they approached a right hander, those behind him then fell like skittles, including Ireland's Dunbar.
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Only the two riders at the back of the eight-man train managed to stay upright, though it looked like Dunbar almost saved himself and had slowed down quite a bit by the time he fell. That means he, hopefully, won't be carrying serious injuries out of this incident.
However, the team has obviously lost time due to the incident and, with Dunbar in Spain to ride for the general classification, that is a blow for him.
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The stage was won by Team dsm-firmenich, from Team Movistar, with those two teams separated by just a fraction of a second. EF Education-EasyPost placed 3rd at three seconds. Dunbar's Team Jayco AlUla, obviously slowed considerably by the crash, finished in 19th place of the 22 teams in the race, losing 51 seconds to the winners.
However, the Irishman did not lose nearly as much time to some of the teams of the highly fancied riders; Jumbo Visma only 19 seconds faster - after waiting for Jonas Vingegaard when he punctured - and Ineos Grenadiers only 32 seconds quicker; losing Laurens De Plus to a crash.
Lorenzo Milesi of Team dsm-firmenich has the first leader's red jersey of the race, the 21-year-old now leading a Grand Tour just over two weeks after winning gold in the U23 TT at the UCI World Road Championships in Scotland.
More to come.
