Darkness and rain affected the start of the Vuelta. The defending champion leads the overall standings after three stages

78. the Vuelta a España, a three-week stage race, is just beginning, but it has already offered some interesting situations. The opening team time trial finished in darkness, while the following stage was affected by rain. The defending overall champion changed into the red jersey on Monday and was hit by a nasty crash after his winning finish.

The organisers of the last Grand Tour event had prepared a team time trial to start the race. This is a discipline that has not been seen so often lately. Its participants encountered an unusual problem in Barcelona.

The almost 15-kilometre ride against the chronometer took place in the evening. The start of the high-profile sporting event was therefore marred by darkness. Only some groups were able to complete the entire route in daylight.

Among the lucky ones were the riders of the DSM-Firmenich team, who narrowly won over the home team Movistar. One of the teams that had to ride in poor visibility was Soudal Quick-Step whose leader is defending champion Remco Evenepoel, who won last year’s race. He was annoyed by the late start, which was a mistake by the organisers, and the subsequent course.

“It was ridiculous to have a team time trial in this darkness. We couldn’t see shit, the road was dangerous and full of water. We are not trained monkeys in a circus,” iSport.cz quoted the Belgian star as saying after the finish. The rain also made the conditions difficult.

The same was true for the second stage, with Italian Lorenzo Milesi wearing the red jersey. Due to the inclement weather, the course was shortened by the final descent and the last kilometres neutralised so that the timings from before the finishing climb up Barcelona’s famous Montjuïc hill would apply.

Andreas Kron was the fastest man up the climb, successfully attacking with three kilometres to go. “I was planning that if I won a stage in the Grand Tour I would dedicate it to my mother who died, but that can wait. This is for Tijl de Decker and for the team, which is going through a difficult time right now,” the Dane recalled the recent death of his young Belgian Lotto-Dstny teammate, as highlighted again by iSport.cz.

In Monday’s third stage, the race leader’s jersey was once again held by an Italian rider, this time EF Education-EasyPost’s Andrea Piccolo. However, he had to hand it over to Evenepoel in Arinsal, located in the Andorran mountains.

One of the Vuelta’s biggest favourites and the reigning world time trial champion outsprinted all his rivals to win at the end of the 158.5km test. However, he had a nasty crash just after the finish line when he hit one of the women, presumably a journalist.

However, a split eyebrow should not put the 23-year-old out of the running. He leads the main classification by five seconds over home rider Enrico Mas of Movistar and by eleven over Frenchman Lenny Martinez of Groupama-FDJ.

Danish Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard is fourth, half a minute off the lead. Three-time Vuelta champion Primož Roglič of Slovenia, who dominated this year’s Giro d’Italia, is 37 seconds back in tenth place. Both belong to the strong Jumbo-Visma formation.

Evenepoel’s Czech domestique Jan Hirt is in 31st position. The other Czech in the peloton and newcomer to this famous Spanish race, Michal Schlegel of the Caja Rural – Seguros RGA team, is 66th.

The 2023 Vuelta continues Tuesday afternoon with an undulating stage from the capital of Andorra to Tarragona. The first week promises a single battle of the spurters in the final climb, in the village of Oliva on Friday. The race runs until Sunday 17 September, when the final run to Madrid is on the agenda.

Source: Vuelta, iSport.cz, Eurosport