Vingegaard holds back after Evenepoel crash in chaotic Catalunya finish

For a few kilometres, it had all the ingredients of a two man fight for the win. They worked together at first, building a small advantage, though that cooperation did not last all the way to the line. Vingegaard began skipping turns in the final ten kilometres, something Evenepoel clearly did not appreciate as he tried to keep the move alive.

With the finish approaching, Evenepoel crashed after losing control, going down heavily just as the pair were about to enter the final stretch. Vingegaard suddenly found himself alone at the front, with a real chance to ride on for victory. Instead, he sat up.

“To be honest, I don’t know what happened,” Vingegaard said afterwards to Eurosport. “He just catapulted over the bars and I only hope he’s okay. It looked crazy.”

Rather than pushing on, the Dane chose not to take advantage of the situation, easing off and waiting as the peloton closed in behind him. “Obviously, I didn’t want to take advantage of a situation like that,” he said. “In that moment I decided to wait for the peloton.”

That decision cost him any chance of the stage, as the bunch swept past in the final metres and set up a sprint.

Earlier, Vingegaard admitted he had not expected the race to play out that way at all. Evenepoel’s move on the flat came as a surprise and forced him into a reaction. “I didn’t expect it this way. I thought it would be a bigger group,” he said. “He went, and I jumped across to him. He was very strong on the flat. He’s very aerodynamic.”

As for the tension between them in the closing kilometres, Vingegaard kept it simple. “At some points he wasn’t too happy with me, but that’s cycling,” he said. “We all have our tactics.”