{"id":2109257,"date":"2026-08-23T19:51:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T16:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2109257"},"modified":"2026-08-23T19:51:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T16:51:42","slug":"ethan-hayter-was-wearing-shredded-shorts-at-the-vuelta-a-espana-whats-going-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2109257","title":{"rendered":"Ethan Hayter Was Wearing Shredded Shorts at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. What\u2019s Going On?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ethan Hayter channeled his frustration at an agonizingly small near-miss Saturday into a big, brave bid for the race leader\u2019s red jersey on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Briton was clad in the green jersey of Vuelta points leadership by virtue of the fact that the time trial winner Tadej Poga\u010dar could only wear one classification kit. He got into a four man break early on but at some point during the stage the legs of his green skinsuit ended up visibly shredded.<\/p>\n
Was he savaged by a wild animal, perhaps, or rode through a bramble bush?<\/p>\n
Turns out it was a very different reason altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organization, for some reason, only gave me an extra small. They didn\u2019t have any spares,\u201d he told TNT Sports after the stage. \u201cThey said you can wear your own team kit or the green jersey.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI said, \u2018I can\u2019t wear my own team kit, you never know when your last day is in the jersey.\u2019 Then we started the race and it was like cutting the blood from my legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looked a bit silly but I was really suffering in the breakaway and then I started to feel a lot better once I made some breathing room for my legs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hayter needed all the oomph he could get as he was on a real mission improbable.<\/p>\n
He missed out on a win in the opening TT by the blink of an eye or, to be more precise, 0.09 of a second.<\/p>\n
That left him out of the red leader\u2019s jersey but very much within striking distance. His chances of gapping Poga\u010dar in the hilly finale were slim to none, and so the intermediate sprint 36km from the finish became the focus.<\/p>\n
However Wout van Aert was just nine seconds back overall and certain to target that plus the finish. Some alternative thinking was needed.<\/p>\n
\u2018He was amazingly strong\u2019<\/h2>\nEthan Hayter gave everything to try to take the race lead on stage 2 of the Vuelta (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cThe tactic was of course to try to take the red jersey,\u201d Soudal Quick-Step directeur sportif Sep Vanmarcke said. \u201cHe would have deserved it yesterday but one special guy was better. It was just very close and today he would try again.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe knew it was a risk to go in the early breakaway, of course, that it wouldn\u2019t come down to the bonus sprint. But on the other hand I think many other riders dream about having a leader\u2019s jersey in a Grand Tour. And he was that close that we had to try it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stage began in Monaco and the attacks kicked off early on. Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla) and Diego Uriarte (Kern Pharma) soon got clear and Hayter bridged 30km in. Sinhu\u00e9 Fernandez (Burgos-Burpellet-BH) joined soon afterwards and the four-man move was gone.<\/p>\n
His sensations were initially not good. Slicing the restrictive shorts proved to be the key and Hayter soon felt a lot better.<\/p>\n
He needed to: Visma-Lease a Bike was doing much of the chasing behind, trying to get Van Aert into red, and a gap which neared two minutes at one point was much less than that approaching the sprint.<\/p>\n
That prompted Hayter to go it alone 49km from the line, and 13 from the intermediate sprint. He rode incredibly strongly, fending off the pursuit behind and hitting the prime line 29 seconds clear.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe was amazingly strong in the hilly part, the last 20km before the bonus sprint,\u201d Vanmarcke continued. \u201cHe took it, that gave us a good first mark, but then of course we knew now your job is to make it with the bunch to the finish line. Then he could take it if of course Poga\u010dar wouldn\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where things got tricky.<\/p>\n
The top names go all in<\/h2>\nTadej Poga\u010dar remains the race leader at the Vuelta (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Once through the sprint, Hayter eased back. There was no way he was going to hold off a rampaging main bunch and so he figured the best thing was to return to the bunch, recover as well as possible and then hope and pray that things didn\u2019t get too wild in the final.<\/p>\n
Van Aert had other plans, though, surging with 2km remaining. Poga\u010dar suffered, but managed to get across to his wheel. That led to a slight drop in pace, XDS-Astana rider Alesandro Romele bridged, and then the peloton closed.<\/p>\n
Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the uphill sprint ahead of Pau Miquel (Bahrain-Victorious) and Poga\u010dar. Hayter was the wrong side of a gap and was given a time 31 seconds back. It was game over for the race lead, at least for now.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere was almost a crash and a small gap at the end,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a hard final for someone who has been in the breakaway. Even for the positioning, I didn\u2019t have the legs to really move any further forward than I was. It\u2019s a shame but it was nice to try.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was, and he gave a great example of an athlete hyper-focused on a goal and doing his utmost to achieve it.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t work out this time but, in terms of effort and application, it was, as Vanmarcke said, pretty much perfect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe planned it like this. He achieved to do exactly what we agreed on him to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the last kilometers, okay, he has been 170km in a breakaway, part of it alone. If then guys like Van Aert go and Poga\u010dar, we cannot expect that he can still follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was pretty honest in the final and we did everything that we were able to do to fight for that red jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n
They did everything, including taking a blade to the hallowed points classification kit Hayter was honored to wear.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s an A for effort, and he will surely be on the attack again at this race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2291682024-scaled.jpg”] Updated August 23, 2026 01:52PM Ethan Hayter channeled his frustration at an agonizingly small near-miss Saturday into a big, brave bid for the race leader\u2019s red jersey on Sunday. The Briton was clad in the green jersey of Vuelta points leadership by virtue of the fact that the time trial winner Tadej […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2109257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2109257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2109257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2109257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2109257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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