"They asked for calm after the crashes of Roglic and Thomas, it suited them" - Imanol Erviti on Jumbo and INEOS' slow down at Vuelta

Imanol Erviti is one of the veterans of the peloton. The Movistar Team 'captain' snuck into the Vuelta a Espana at the last minute because of Carlos Verona's illness and spoke to Eurosport after the dangerous second stage in which there were several controversies because the riders in the general classification did not want to compete.

Erviti explained that it was important for them that Enric Mas did not suffer any mishap, especially considering what happened to them at the start of the last Tour de France:

"It was the typical difficult day for those of us thinking about the general classification and we came from a Tour with a crash that conditioned the whole race, here we have started off on the right foot."

Regarding the moment when Vingegaard, Evenepoel and some INEOS riders asked the peloton to relax, Erviti was critical that they did so just after Primoz Roglic and Geraint Thomas crashed, although he understood that it was time to take it easy:

"It was funny, they asked for calm after the crashes of Roglic and Thomas, it suited them. It's a difficult line to decide, it's difficult to assess how far it is and how far it isn't, how far it's a danger, how far we can measure ourselves sportingly without anyone getting hurt. It shouldn't be up to the riders but to some organizer who was on the ground and made a fairer decision".