Movistar Team reportedly at fault for Vuelta a España Femenina TTT nightmare: “You want a fair sport, but this is not the way to do it”

The 2025 Vuelta a España Femenina got off to a chaotic and controversial start in Barcelona, as organisational issues marred the opening team time trial. Multiple teams, including Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Uno-X Mobility, were forced to start the stage late or with incomplete squads due to delays at the pre-race bike checks, prompting widespread outrage and criticism of both the organisers and the UCI.

Teams arrived for routine equipment checks, but a lack of coordination and communication saw several squads unable to begin the time trial as scheduled. Riders were left stranded as time ticked down, unable to line up in time for their official start, with some forced to start without key teammates or even begin late.

The situation sparked immediate backlash, most notably from mountain bike legend and Paris-Roubaix winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who took to social media, before later deleting the post, to vent her frustration.

“What the fuck! How can the organization of a Grand Tour be so amateurish?” she wrote. “Was the jury asleep when they had to check our bikes? We were there 20 minutes before the start, for the check, and two of our riders weren’t ready in time. We kept telling the jury to go, but it looked like they were just chilling.”

Ferrand-Prévot went on to condemn the impact on her team’s general classification chances. “We have done so much preparation and effort, for nothing. We are now losing so much time in the general classification. Hey UCI, you want a fair sport, but this is not the way to do it.”

Uno-X Mobility's Anouska Koster echoed those frustrations, revealing the knock-on effects caused by delays earlier in the schedule.

“We arrived late at the start because of one of the teams in front of us. We were at the bike checkpoint more than fifteen minutes before the start, but because another team arrived later, we had to wait and our checkpoint wasn’t ready in time,” she told ProCyclingUK. “We had no idea that we had to start because no one was telling us the time. So we weren’t in the starting grid yet, so we weren’t clicked in and there was no countdown. In the end, we left ten seconds late.”

According to WielerFlits, the blame appears to lie with Movistar Team, who reportedly arrived late to the checkpoint and created a bottleneck that impacted subsequent teams. The Spanish outfit was just able to start with all riders present, but the damage to other teams had already been done.