Giro d’Italia 2023: ‘It wasn’t a nice manoeuvre’ – Remco Evenepoel lays blame on Kaden Groves for Stage 2 crash

The Soudal-QuickStep rider was able to avoid the incident itself and keep hold of the pink jersey, but still gave a detailed recollection of what happened.

“Ballerini touched the wheel of [Josef] Cerny so he had to make a big manoeuvre to stay on the bike.

“So did I because I was behind Davide, who guided me to the finish and because of this swing to the right, I think they took the impact on the right and they just crashed because there was no space any more.

“So, it wasn’t a nice manoeuvre, I think that was the cause of the crash, so it’s just a pity that it happened in such a nice and easy stage.”

The Belgian also revealed his strategy ahead of the stage and explained how he reacted to the crash with only 3km left in the race.

“One moment I was just happy to avoid the crash, because you hear the sound of the crash and you look behind and you see nobody any more, it’s quite a shock,” he added. “But then after that you just have to focus because it was still three kilometres to go and you have to stay up [there] on the bike.

“I had discussed it with the guys beforehand that I’d stay up there until three kilometres to go and then I’d drop back because I don’t want to interrupt the sprinters because it’s their time and there is respect between the sprinters and the GC guys.

“But of course you have to stay upright and focussed because you don’t want to end up on the ground because the stage was so easy, you just want to stay out of trouble. Luckily for us, nobody [from the Soudal-QuickStep team] was involved so we can forget today and look forward to tomorrow.”

Evenpoel’s claims have been disputed by Alpecin-Deceuninck, who reportedly told the publication that Groves cannot be accused of any wrongdoing and that the Australian had fears of being boxed in along with worries of crashing into the barriers.

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