"I was a bit short of water and it was very hot" - Richard Carapaz suffers big time loss on stage 4 of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana

In the first high mountain stage of the 2024 Vuelta a Espana, we could see the first indications of riders who are in the best shape and those who don't have the best legs. For Richard Carapaz, it was sadly the latter category.

The former Olympic champion finished 25th on the day, accompanied by the other big disappointment of the day, Adam Yates, 1:29 behind the winner and new race leader, Primoz Roglic. As a result, the EF Education-EasyPost leader is now 26th overall, 2:02 behind the Slovenian leader of Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe.

After crossing the finish line, the Ecuadorian spoke to the microphones, analysing how he had felt during the day and the goals he now sets for himself after losing so much time to his main rivals.

"It was very hot, it was a very hot day, it was, I don't know, maybe 40 degrees and in the end it was a very hard pass. I tried to defend myself in the best way and we did our best at the end. I think that today, as I said, it was a day to defend ourselves and I think we did well," Carapaz assesses. "At the end I was also a bit short of water and it was very hot. I got into a desperation zone and I tried to defend myself as best I could. We still have some very hard stages and I think we're going to stay focused. There's still a lot of Vuelta left."