Vuelta chaos: De Gendt, Guillén & Dan Martin give their take; Cav 50/50 for 2024; Jumbo-Visma holds course after doping positive

RadioCycling

The Vuelta a España is off and running, although its opening weekend was hardly auspicious. RadioCycling donned its waterproofs and night vision goggles in Barcelona and these are our headline stories...
The Vuelta's chaotic start: glassy and treacherous roads, racing in darkness, rider protests, getting the results of intermediate sprints from fans, and its defending champion's crash into race staff moments after a thrilling victory... The season's final Grand Tour has stumbled rather than sprinted from the starting blocks. We hear from Thomas De Gendt on the riders' take of the mayhem, we get a defence of the events that occurred from Vuelta director Javier Guillén, and we speak to multiple Grand Tour stage-winner Dan Martin, who explains why this kind of chaos will keep happening while there's no cohesion among the sport's stakeholders.
Mark Cavendish is 50/50 for 2024. That's according to his Astana team manager Alexandre Vinokourov, who's tells RadioCycling that he's still encouraging the sport's greatest sprinter to continue for one more year, and is trying to bring that about by signing more riders to be part of the Briton's sprint train.
Following the recent positive test for a diuretic of his young GC talent Michel Hessmann, Jumbo-Visma boss Richard Plugge tells us that the team is confident with its internal protocols and regime of supplements, including the use of cetones. Plugge further explains that no decision can be taken on Hessmann's future until an investigation into the German's positive has been completed.

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