Jumbo-Visma announced team leader Primoz Roglic's departure from the race as a result of a crash at the end of Stage 16, but the Slovenian has since attributed his crash to "a rider's behaviour" with a scathing attack on rival Fred Wright.
A collision between the two during the final metres of Stage 16 resulted in Roglic's exit from the Spanish Tour as the two were battling it out in a sprint for the line, with the three-time Vuelta winner becoming entangled by a clash with Wright and suffering from serious wounds as a result of hitting the pavement.
Roglic picked himself up and struggled to the finish line but withdrew from the race hours later as he succumbed to his injuries sustained from both the crash and other incidents in stages four and six.
The 32-year-old turned his frustration towards Wright in a press release published by his team on Friday (AEST).
"This was not OK," Roglic said. "This shouldn't happen. People move on swiftly as if nothing happened. For me, that doesn't apply. This is not the way I want the sport to continue, and I want to make that clear.
"I can walk a little bit. I am happy with that for the moment. After the crash, it took me time to straighten things out. I asked myself: how can this be? My conclusion is that the way this crash happened is unacceptable. Not everyone saw it correctly.
"The crash was not caused by a bad road or a lack of safety but by a rider's behaviour. I don't have eyes on my back. Otherwise, I would have run wide. Wright came from behind and rode the handlebars out of my hands before I knew it."
Jumbo-Visma managing director Richard Plugge compared the crash to a similar collision between Dylan Groenewegen and Fabio Jakobsen at the 2019 Tour de Pologne, while suggesting that the crash was also the fault of Wright as he expressed a desire for rider behaviour to change ahead of future events.
"Research has been done into numerous racing incidents. They have been mapped out in a database," he said.
"The causes were categorised. Obstacles, for example. As well as 'rider's own fault' or 'other rider's fault'. We are right to talk about unsafe spots in a course, such as the threshold in Burgos (Ed: referring to a speed bump near the finish line that saw David Dekker of Jumbo-Visma crash).
"However, research shows that the riders' cycling behaviour is to blame for a crash in about half the cases. Not braking, but pushing through, for example. It doesn't surprise me because every rider has the will to win. I would like to say: brake and use your brains. It requires a change of behaviour, driven by awareness and consistent judging.
"Shortly after the incident in Poland, it almost went wrong in Milano-Sanremo for the third and the fourth place. Fortunately, that ended well, but the behaviour remained unpunished. We have to deal with that properly."
The SBS commentary team spoke during Stage 19 of the comments by Roglic, surprised by the comments given how the crash occurred.
"I saw the crash as Primoz Roglic as drifting across and catching the hip of Fred Wright, though I'd like to have another look at it," said SBS head commentator Matt Keenan. "I haven't seen any images that would draw the conclusion that Primoz Roglic is looking to. I didn't see anything deliberate from Fred Wright."
Simon Gerrans spoke of the unusual nature of issuing a press release.
"I don't see any benefit for Jumbo-Visma or Primoz Roglic to put that out in the media."
Wright expressed his shock and disappointment at the Jumbo-Visma press release, as he took to Twitter to respond to the incident with Bahrain Victorious issuing a statement later.
"It was really hard to read, and I’m pretty disappointed. I think it's unfair, the team and I have looked at the footage again tonight, and I honestly don't believe I did anything wrong," Wright said.
"It was just a racing incident. Primoz is an amazing bike rider, he was so on the up and challenging for the red jersey in Madrid.
"It was a huge loss for the race and I totally understand that he must be very disappointed. I'm sure he'll be smashing races again soon - he was so impressive 3 days ago, I'm gutted for him."
Watch Stage 20, a 181-kilometre blockbuster of a race in the Guadarrama Mountains, LIVE on SBS tonight from 8:25pm (AEST) on SBS On Demand with television coverage on SBS beginning at 10:15pm.
