La Vuelta Women's begins with a chaotic start, protests, fine for Movistar and victory for Lidl Trek

Chaos once again takes over a time trial of La Vuelta in Barcelona. A grotesque situation with several teams starting late due to problems in the technical verification of the bikes that is carried out throughout the time trial, ending with the anger of Visma-Lease a Bike and with Movistar Team paying the price.

Several squads start the women's La Vuelta team time trial with delays

"I can't believe what happened this afternoon, in one of the biggest races of the season like the Women's La Vuelta. It's so 'amateur'." With these words in a post on her Instagram account, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot showed her anger at the situation that occurred in the opening stage of the Women's Vuelta a España that started with a team time trial in the streets of Barcelona.

One of the curiosities of this start of #LaVueltaFemenina!

Visma Lease-a-bike was about to start, but one rider was missing.

And when they started, they couldn't contact their team for this time trial!

LIVE | Teledeporte and https://t.co/UDWAq19nym pic.twitter.com/aimiSchsMD

— Teledeporte (@teledeporte) May 4, 2025

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At one point in the race, it was Uno-X Mobility's turn to start their participation, leaving the ramp several seconds after the judges gave them the signal. However, there was more to it when, three minutes later, one of the favorite teams like Visma-Lease a Bike appeared at the starting ramp with only 4 cyclists. A few seconds later, two more cyclists appeared, starting with a few seconds of delay, and from the side, in the place designated for the team cars to join, the missing cyclist appeared.

Finally, at the finish line, Visma-Lease a Bike conceded 20 seconds to the stage winners, the cyclists of Lidl-Trek, but what really happened?

After the stage, the UCI announced the sanction to Movistar Team, fined with 1600 Swiss francs, 200 per rider and another 200 to the director. Movistar Team started on time, 3 minutes before Uno-X Mobility's turn, where the delay began. The UCI accuses them of not being with enough time for the bike check prior to the stage.

From Movistar Team, they admit they arrived late to the check but point out that, once there, they had to wait for the verification of their bikes since the only judge-referee who was conducting checks had not finished checking the previous team's bikes. A delay that extended to Uno-X Mobility and ended up being fully experienced by Visma-Lease a Bike.

As expected, after the stage, Jacco Verhaeren, head coach of Visma-Lease a Bike, went to protest to the UCI's technical jury who, according to the coach's words, admitted their fault in managing the bike verification, in fact, after Visma-Lease a Bike started, they placed a second judge-referee to help with the bike checks. However, they decided to blame Movistar Team.

A chaos in a time trial held in Barcelona that brought back memories of the situation experienced in this same scenario in the time trial that started the 2023 Vuelta where the rain and clouds covering the city, combined with the late schedule set by the organization, caused the last cyclists to finish practically at night, with the tremendous anger of Remco Evenepoel.