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Volta a Valenciana neutralizes team time trial due to unsafe weather conditions

Stage 2 winner Valverde will take race lead into Saturday's queen stage

Organizers of the 69th Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in Spain decided that while Friday’s already-shortened team time trial stage would go ahead, the times would not count towards the general classification due to brutal weather conditions.


Heavy rain that left standing water on the roads and lashing winds were rightly judged to be too dangerous for the riders. Michal Kwiatkowski of Sky, one of the favourites for the team chrono, had his doubts about the stage before the organizers announced the neutralization.


The teams took to the start ramps and lit out into the maelstrom, but there were no risks to take with the neutralization.


One wonders if LottoNL-Jumbo meant this “seriously” to be “Seriously?” as the team took a preventative equipment move.


Several teams either rode their road bikes or a mix of road and time trail machines.

Stage 3 had already been cut from 30-km to 23-km before the race because of fears of wicked winds on the coast as the squads moved southwest to Calpe.

Alejandro Valverde, who captured the race lead following a daring raid on Stage 2, takes the leader’s jersey into Saturday’s queen stage, which ends on a 4.6-km, 8.4% summit finish.