A puncture by Jonas Vingegaard put an end to the Jumbo-Visma team's chances: "We didn't expect so much rain, but it's the same for everyone"

Sepp Kuss spoke to the media after the tricky opening team time trial of the Vuelta a Espana 2023. Jumbo-Visma's American climber explained that a puncture by Jonas Vingegaard caused them to lose valuable time, but that they were still happy with the performance and that the best thing to do, given the route, was not to take any risks.

"We didn't expect so much rain, but it's the same for everyone, it would have been more fun with a dry course, but we saved the day very well, a pity about the problem with Jonas, until that we had everything calm," he said in a post-race interview. "We lost half a minute, which is nothing for the first stage. With such a complicated weather it was better to take it easy in the corners and not to take risks".

Jumbo-Visma ended up losing 32 seconds to DSM and Movistar, the teams that set the fastest time. That means Roglic and Vingegaard lose that time to Enric Mas and 26 seconds to Remco Evenpoel, as Soudal Quick-Step completed a slightly better time trial by not encountering any incidents. The loss to Geraint Thomas' INEOS Grenadiers was 12 seconds.

These are not very significant differences in the bigger picture but taking into account that they were the main favourites to win today's stage, it comes as a bad first day for the Dutch team which is now on the back foot.