“By the time the decision was made, it was already quite late” – Movistar admit Tour de France hesitation after Cian Uijtdebroeks cramps

Movistar Team’s opening Tour de France team time trial unravelled around Cian Uijtdebroeks in Barcelona, with head of performance Ivan Velasco admitting the team lost crucial time while deciding how best to manage their struggling leader.

Uijtdebroeks, who had already explained after Stage 1 that he suffered cramps on the Montjuic climb, finished well below where Movistar had hoped after the Spanish team’s early rhythm broke down.

Speaking to Marca, Velasco said the plan had initially been on course before the Belgian’s physical problems forced the team car into a difficult call.

“It was not the start to the Tour we expected,” Velasco said. “We had trained well and had all the rhythms well dialled in. We did not go out harder than we should have. We were riding at our rhythm and you could see that at the first intermediate split, where we came through sixth or seventh. That was our objective, to be between fifth and eighth, because that was realistic based on what we had done in previous time trials.”

The problems began to shape the ride from the middle of the course, with Uijtdebroeks unable to stay at the level Movistar had planned around. “Cian did not have the day and from halfway through the time trial we were waiting for him at some corners, so we had to ease off a little,” Velasco explained. “Basically, Cian did not have the day and when the leader does not have the day, it is very complicated.”

Velasco said the team had to balance the original target of a top-five to top-eight stage result with the need to protect the rider they had brought to the Tour for the general classification. “I was on the radio,” he said. “In the end, he is the leader, we have to give him confidence and we had to wait for him. We knew we were fighting to be between fifth and seventh, we could not aspire to win a time trial like this, so we had to wait for him.”

Movistar eventually changed the plan and allowed Raul to continue ahead, but Velasco admitted the call came after valuable time had already gone. “We told Raul to go on ahead alone and for the rest to stay with Cian,” Velasco revealed. “But we had already lost a lot of time. There was a huge amount of public, they could not hear me properly over the radio, there were doubts over whether to stop or not, and by the time the decision was made, it was already quite late.”

Despite the costly opening day, Velasco tried to keep the setback in perspective with 20 stages still to race. “We are okay, we have to keep going,” he said. “There are 20 stages left. It is a setback and hopefully it will be Cian’s worst day in this Tour, and from here everything will get better.”

Velasco also insisted the time loss does not change Movistar’s objective for Uijtdebroeks in his first Tour de France. “It changes nothing. We knew it was his first Tour, that he is a very young rider and that he had never done it before,” he said. “Our objective has always been for him to finish inside the top 10 and to learn how to ride for general classifications.”

The Movistar performance chief pointed to the amount of climbing still to come, arguing that the race remains open enough for Uijtdebroeks to recover position if the cramps prove to be a one-day problem.

“He is a rider with a lot of capacity and a big engine,” Velasco said. “The 10th-placed rider in last year’s Tour finished more than 30 minutes down, so losing one minute and 40 or one minute and 50 now is not going to change too much at the end. The important thing is that this does not affect him mentally. We are supporting him as much as we can.”

Velasco also expects Stage 2 to bring another demanding finale, with heat, crowds and three passages over Montjuic creating the possibility of more splits.

“There are many candidates for the win,” he said. “Alpecin with Van der Poel, Pidcock with his team and also Pogacar, who, after one of his rivals won yesterday, will surely want to get involved in the fight for the stage. I think it will be a very fast day and that there will be splits at the end.”