Fred Wright has hit back after Primoz Roglic said he holds the British rider responsible for the crash that ended his Vuelta a España race on stage 16.
“The crash was not caused by a bad road or a lack of safety but by a rider’s behaviour,” the three-time Vuelta champion said in a statement on the Jumbo-Visma website.
“I don’t have eyes on my back. Otherwise, I would have run wide. Wright came from behind and rode the handlebars out of my hands before I knew it.” The incident occurred around 100m from the finish line of Tuesday’s stage in Tomares.
After finishing second to Mads Pedersen on Friday’s stage, Wright said he first became aware of the “unfair” statement when he returned to the Bahrain-Victorious team bus.
“It was really hard to read, and I’m pretty disappointed,” Wright posted on Twitter. “I think it’s unfair, the team and I have looked at the footage again tonight, and I honestly don’t believe I did anything wrong – it was just a racing incident.
“Primoz is an amazing bike rider,” the 23-year-old added. “He was so on the up and challenging for the red jersey in Madrid. It was a huge loss for the race and I totally understand he must be very disappointed.
“I’m sure he’ll be smashing races again soon. He was so impressive three days ago, I’m gutted for him,” Wright continued. “There have been some pretty nasty comments, but I really appreciate all the positive messages I’ve had.”
The controversy came after Denmark’s Pedersen secured his third victory of this year’s race on stage 19 in Talavera de la Reina, to hammer home his advantage in the Vuelta’s sprint classification.
The Trek-Segafredo rider finished in front of Wright and Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin–Deceuninck) after a technical run-in that featured a succession of roundabouts and a hairpin bend with 1.1km remaining.
The overall race leader, the Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), comfortably defended his advantage of 2min 7sec over Movistar’s Enric Mas.
Saturday’s stage 20 is the final real test of the race for Evenepoel as he aims to seal his first Grand Tour triumph. The 181km route between Moralzarzal and Puerto de Navacerrada takes in five categorised climbs, including three category ones, before Sunday’s final flat stage into Madrid.
“It’s never easy in a final like this because it’s a lot of good guys in the peloton,” Pedersen said afterwards. “If one of them comes with an attack on one of the roundabouts, I would be the guy to close it and then it would be hard to sprint, so I was really happy with the speed the boys could keep.”
Miles Scotson (Groupama-FDJ) launched a strong solo attack in the final kilometre, but the Australian could not hold off the chasing pack. Pedersen was perfectly positioned to sprint for the line and hold off Wright, who is second in the points classification, albeit 205 points behind.
“I’d like to thank my teammates for the amazing effort they put in today,” Wright said. “I was close again to that stage win, but Mads was just too quick.”
Challenges to Evenepoel’s GC supremacy had been expected on a 138.3km circuit-race stage that featured a double ascent of the Puerto del Pielago, a category-two climb that tops out at 1,227m above sea level.
As it turned out, the racing was relatively relaxed with Trek-Segafredo controlling things all day for Pedersen, the former world road race champion. There were no significant attacks on the final major climb of the day, as had been widely predicted.
Having escaped inside the first 10km, the three-man breakaway of Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates), Jonathan Caicedo (EF Education-EasyPost) and Ander Okamika (Burgos-BH) were caught on a climb with 49km remaining.
