"A wave of illness has swept over us overnight" - Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe investigating rumours of food poisoning after string of abandons on stage 20 of La Vuelta 24

Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe were uncharacteristically weak on stage 20 of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana. Having done all the hard on the prior stage to get Primoz Roglic back into the Red Jersey, a trio of abandons then threatened to undo all that hard work.

With the INEOS Grenadiers setting a fierce pace on the front of the peloton on third categorised climb of the day, Primoz Roglic was suddenly feeling very alone as the likes of Daniel Martinez, Patrick Gamper and Aleksandr Vlasov were struggling with over 100km still to go. Around 25km later, the sad news was confirmed that Martinez had abandoned the race. A little while later, Nico Denz and the aforementioned Gamper were also announced to have abandoned the 2024 Vuelta a Espana.

"A wave of illness has swept over us overnight. We are currently investigating whether food poisoning is the cause," explains Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's sports director Patxi Villa in conversation with his team's official website post-stage. "Several staff members have been affected and have had to pull out of today's stage. Also, Nico, Gampi, Dani and Aleks were unwell during the stage. We will gather now and will focus on tomorrow's final stage."

Thankfully, and most importantly, Roglic himself seemed relatively unaffected, maintaining his comfortable overall lead with a strong performance on the final climb. “The team was not at its best but everybody gave it their best, big respect, they just put everything they had," explained Roglic in his own post-stage interview, admitting things were far from ideal for the team on stage 20. "Luckily I’m quite fine for the moment so it was a nice day."