UAE Team Emirates-XRG had put themselves in an enviable position after stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under, with its two former winners in Jay Vine and Jhonatan Narváez in first and second with a margin of around one minute to their nearest overall rivals, but on Saturday’s shortened stage 4 Narváez crashed and it was soon announced that he would be leaving the race.
The shortened stage – altered due to the extreme fire risk and temperatures rising over 40°C – had barely got underway when the crash occurred and it quickly became clear that the Ecuadorian would not be continuing.
His abandon was confirmed by Tour Down Under’s live results feed with its social media adding, “Not the start of the day UAE Team Emirates-XRG hoped for: After Adam Yates crashing yesterday, it’s now Jhonatan Narváez who is forced to leave the Santos Tour Down Under.”
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At the start of the stage, Narváez had been six seconds back from race-leading teammate Vine, with his nearest rival being Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) at a further 59 seconds back.
“It’s windy, and when it’s a sprint stage it’s always difficult. Like yesterday, you saw crashes and all these things and we would always start anyway with a huge concentration,” he said. “We can never relax, never because everybody thinks it’s easy, it’s easy, but at the end of the day we need to do these 130 kms and then tomorrow also, so that’s not the case.”
Before the stage was even halfway through UAE Team Emirates-XRG was two riders down in its defence of Vine’s leader’s jersey.
More to come …