Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) - Race Leader
"For me it was a hard day. It was just super hot and we went all-out already on the first climb," said Roglič. "Then it was long for me, and I was waiting to come to the finish."
Jumbo-Visma had Sepp Kuss representing their interests in the front group of 30 that eventually went away after a hard and fast start.
"Yeah, you can have some plans on these kinds of days, but as we saw it was about racing," Roglič said. "The breakaways went and went, and in the end you have to accept the situation as it is. And in that case, it was definitely nice to have a guy like him in the break."
"Steep," Roglič joked when asked to describe the final climb. "Yeah, it was a steep climb. Anyway, it was a hard day from the very start and it was super hot. It was very nice in the end to go to the finish line here."
(On Valverde's crash) "I just saw him slipping away off the road. It's shit. Hopefully he will recover fast," said Roglič, who continued talking about Movistar.
"They can play a bit more with attacking: first one and then another, like we saw today. But also today our guys were super strong. We have to focus on that and keep doing our job."
Miguel Angel López (Movistar) - 4th overall - 36 seconds behind
(On Valverde's crash) "He was a rider who gave us a great deal of confidence and security, and a key sort of rider on days like today," said Lopez. "In a small group of contenders, we could always get ahead thanks to him."
López said he had not seen the fall itself, because he was a little further back when Valverde attacked alongside fellow Murcia local and teammate Jose Joaquín Rojas.
"When we came past the place where he fell, there wasn't anybody on the ground and I only found out later he'd fallen. We're really going to regret that he's had to quit."
Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) - 6th overall - 41 seconds behind
"I think it was a hard stage," Bernalsaid. "The parcours was really hard, it was all day up and down. I think the heat was really high, but I think finally we did well. We didn't lose time on GC against the favourites, so it was a good day for us."
"The final climb was really fast at the beginning, and the last two kilometres were steep. It was a kind of punchy climb, so I preferred to stay with the favourites," said Bernal.
INEOS Grenadiers began the Vuelta with a three-pronged attack for the red jersey, which now appears to have slimmed to two realistic chances, with Adam Yates and Bernal appearing stronger at present than Olympic road race gold medalist Richard Carapaz. Yates suffered some bad luck on Stage 2 where he was caught behind a crash and lost time and sits 10th at 1'22 behind, with Carapaz 16th at 2'48.
"I think it can be an option, you know," Bernal said if they could be aggressive with long range moves. "La Vuelta is really hard and you can see today it was a big breakaway, so if we have Carapaz or Yates – who are really, really good riders – up there in the GC within around 2-3 minutes, then they are still dangerous in GC.
"I think it's not a bad idea to have them up there in the GC. I'm also not at my 100 per cent, so even for me it's better if we have some cards to play."
