Adam Yates frustrated by jury decision after Vuelta crash: "Then there's not much you can do"

The day after the crash, Yates assessed the situation in an interview with Eurosport. "It was a slippery descent, which was tricky. Two riders in front of me went down, and I had nowhere to go," the climber explained.

After the earlier time loss, Yates is now over nine minutes behind. "Physically, I came out okay after the crash, but the commissaire immediately made a barrage. Then there's not much you can do, and you lose time." As Yates was getting back up, the peloton was pushing hard behind leader O'Connor.

Yates isn't throwing in the towel yet and has drawn motivation from O'Connor's solo ride. "He got away on a technical course on a hot day. If you can keep riding well, as he did, you can stay away. Ben obviously had superb legs, but on such a technical course, it's also hard to regain time."

"I've already lost a lot of time, but that also means I have nothing left to lose," continued the sixth-place finisher from the recent Tour de France. "What Ben did might still be possible for me. But if not, we have several riders high in the standings: the general classification is our main focus," said the UAE-Team Emirates rider.

Joao Almeida is now in third place, while Pavel Sivakov (14th) and Isaac del Toro (19th) are still ahead of Yates.