Hayter explains why he cut his green shorts during Vuelta breakaway

Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) has revealed that he cut the shorts of his green kit during stage 2 of the Vuelta a España because the race organisers had given him an extra-small kit that was restricting his legs.

The Briton, who missed out on the red jersey to Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) by just 0.09 seconds on stage 1, had opted to wear the green jersey rather than his team kit before joining the breakaway in an attempt to take the race lead

“The organisation, for some reason, they only gave me an extra small, and then they didn’t have any spares,” Hayter explained.

“They said you can wear your own team kit or the green jersey and I said, ‘I can’t wear my own team kit, because maybe you never know when your last days are in the jersey.’

Once the race got underway and he infiltrated his way into the four-man breakaway, Hayter realised that something needed to be done.

“It was like cutting the blood from my legs,” Hayter said. “I was really suffering in the breakaway, and I started to feel a lot better once I made some breathing room for my legs.

Hayter was the last man standing from the breakaway, winning the intermediate sprint with 35km to go to claim six bonus seconds and move into the virtual lead.

However, the 27-year-old ran out of gas on the final run-in, finishing 80th, 31 seconds behind stage winner Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike), and Pogačar, missing out on the red jersey.

“You don’t get many opportunities in a Grand Tour and I thought I’d give it a go,” he said. “I thought sprinting myself would be quite difficult to take a top three, so I thought I had nothing to lose, really.”

“I had to make quite a big effort at the start and probably maybe paid for it just a little bit at the end,” Hayter said. “It’s a shame, but it was nice to try.”