Late in the third stage of the Vuelta a España, Ecuadorian rider Richard Calapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) crashed before the finale of the sprint competition in Breda.

Calapaz was one of the unlucky GC riders who suffered a crash even before the race reached Spain.

Steph Klass, outrider of Lot Soudal, was seriously injured in the second stage, and Mike Woods (Israel Premier Tech) crashed early in the third stage, making it impossible for him to continue the race as well. However, Karapas quickly returned to his bike and was guided back to the peloton by teammates Carlos Rodriguez and Pavel Sivakov.

At the finish line, Carapas made his way through the huge crowds to the team bus, but he did not appear to be injured at all and calmly went through the post-race warm-down for stage 3, even joking a bit with his teammates.

"I'm fine. It was a pretty fast stage and a little bit dangerous, but we got through it okay and now we're on our way to Spain.

"Sometimes stupid crashes are the worst, but this time I was fine. The team got me back in the peloton right away." The important thing is that I'm feeling good and we're heading to Spain."

Karapas said the crash happened when the bike unexpectedly skidded while riding at speed. But there was no pain or anything."

"The only thing that happened was that I got off the bike pretty quickly," he said.

Unlike Alejandro Valverde, who criticized the Dutch stage as too dangerous and who also crashed near the finish line 24 hours earlier, Karapas rejected the notion that the Dutch stage was unusual.

"After all, every Grand Tour has a few stages like this. He said."

Karapas enters the first rest day of the Vuelta in eighth place overall, 16 seconds behind archrival Primoš Roglic (Jumbo Visma).