Richard Carapaz has had a difficult start to Tirreno-Adriatico 2024. He suffered a crash in the Strade Bianche that he's still recovering from, with bad weather during his opening time trial not helping either.
Thankfully, Carapaz showed signs of life on stage 3, working for his teammate Alberto Bettiol and leading EF Education-EasyPost on the last climb of the day. What he did manage to do, however, was to accidentally claim the King of the Mountains jersey."
"It was a coincidence, we were trying to do the sprint with Bettiol and I came out first," he admits post-stage. "Well, it's a jersey I've won in grand tours and I like it. I'll try to score points, but the team's goal is to win a stage. There wasn't much of a gap. It was a very short pass and the wheel could go very well. We tried and it didn't work out. The team is happy, we'll try again later. I had a small crash in Strade Bianche, I couldn't do well in the time trial, I'm going day by day, the goal is Tirreno, in the Basque Country I would like to be in contention".