Ethan Hayter narrowly missed out on the leader’s red jersey at the Vuelta a España for the second day running, despite briefly going into the virtual lead thanks to his efforts in the breakaway on stage 2.

Having lost out to Tadej Pogačar by less than a tenth of a second during the Monaco opener on Saturday, Hayter admitted that while he would be pursuing red on the first road stage, whether or not he could take it would largely depend on what the world champion wanted.

Hayter made it into the early breakaway, before ditching his fellow escapees once the peloton started to make an impression on the four-rider group’s advantage, before time trialling his way to the intermediate sprint where he would gain six bonus seconds and move ahead of Pogačar.

All he had to do to claim a first Grand Tour lead of his career would be finish in the front group and hope that the all-conquering Slovenian didn’t win what was expected to be a sprint – but that is much easier said than done.

“I didn’t get the jersey, no? Do you know the result?” said Hayter as he arrived at the finish in Manosque, to which the reporter then informed him Pogačar would be keeping red.

After his visible disappointment on stage 1, Hayter was once again left wanting more, with several gaps forming in the run for home causing him to only manage 80th, losing 31 seconds and any hope of the lead.

Questions have been raised over his positioning in recent years, and Hayter was barely towards the front with his Soudal-QuickStep teammates once he was caught back from the break. Though there was the hectic nature of the approach to battle with, he could only concede that the legs weren’t there.

“It was just almost a crash and a small gap in the end, and it was a hard final for someone that’s been in the breakaway,” Hayter told Eurosport, “and even for the positioning, I didn’t have the legs to really move any further forward than I was. It’s a shame, but it was nice to try.”

Explaining that near-miss, Hayter said, “There was just one roundabout; I think they only had one lane open, and we almost stopped halfway in the bunch. It happens, but yeah.

“I was also just sliding backwards in the climb, anyway; I didn’t really have much left for such a hard finish. And guys, we’re doing full lead outs and then just stopping, obviously, in the middle of the road. And it’s a little bit tricky if you’re not in the front.”

His team had little in the way of complaints about the British rider’s execution, despite him being unable to follow once Wout van Aert and Pogačar kicked off the finale, where his compatriot Matthew Brennan ended up taking victory.

“He achieved exactly what we agreed on to do, and the last kilometre – OK he has been 170 kilometres in the breakaway partly alone – if then guys like Van Aert and Pogačar go, we cannot expect that he can still follow,” said DS Sepp Vanmarcke. “So I think it was pretty honest in the final, and we did everything that we were able to do to fight for that red jersey.”

Ripped shorts en route to the finish

The other curious story surrounding Hayter on stage 2 was that midway through the stage, he was spotted in the breakaway with the back of his shorts completely ripped open.

Explaining why he had to go with the modified kit, Hayter said the organisers had simply given him no sizing options when it came to the green jersey he was donning. He wasn’t going to miss his moment to ride in a leader’s jersey, and though he is still in second in the points classification, Hayter will wear green again on Monday’s stage 3.

“The organisation, for some reason, they only gave me an extra small, and then they didn’t have any spares, so they said you can wear your own team kit or the green jersey,” said Hayter.

“I said I can’t wear my own team kit, for maybe – you never know when your last day is in the jersey. But then we started the race, and it was like cutting the blood from my legs, so I had to. It looked a bit silly, but I was really suffering in the breakaway, and I started to feel a lot better once I made some breathing room for my legs.”

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