Geraint Thomas encourages safety first approach after Vuelta incident with Primoz Roglic – ‘It’s not worth crashing’

Geraint Thomas and Primoz Roglic were involved in a potentially nasty crash in stage two of the Vuelta a Espana, and the Welshman highlighted a safety-first approach in treacherous conditions.

After weeks of dry weather, the thunderstorms in Barcelona had made the roads increasingly slippery ahead of the inevitable first crash in this Grand Tour.

With the wet conditions in mind, organisers and riders had agreed to take general classification timings before the entrance to the Montjuic circuit ahead of the final 9km.

The incident involving Roglic and Thomas took place with 30km to go, as both took a tumble after a UAE Team Emirates rider.

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.

“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.

“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.

“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.”

Roglic of Team Jumbo-Visma emerged from the incident relatively unscathed after coming away with abrasions on the left-hand side of his body.

However, not everyone was so lucky; Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich) has a suspected broken collarbone and was forced to withdraw from his Grand Tour debut.

Attention now turns to stage three which runs between Suria and Arinsal, as the riders head into the mountains.