UAE vow not to ‘quit’ despite Marc Soler and Jay Vine abandonment and Adam Yates’ GC hopes in tatters - ‘Whole face of the race has changed’
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Updated 09/05/2026 at 21:19 GMT+1
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Antonio Morgado said UAE Team Emirates-XRG “are not going to quit” the Giro d’Italia despite a crash in Stage 2 forcing Marc Soler and Jay Vine to abandon, and Adam Yates out of GC contention.
Morgado vows UAE 'won't quit' after huge crash leaves GC hopes in tatters
Video credit: TNT Sports
TNT Sports’ Robbie McEwen said the "whole face of the race has changed” following Yates’ misfortune, which leaves him almost 14 minutes behind the race leaders and UAE without a contender for the maglia rosa after they came so close to winning in 2025.
Soler slipped on a treacherously wet descent, taking down a host of riders behind him including his team-mates Vine and Yates, while at the front of the race a late move featuring Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) was caught in the final kilometre and XDS Astana’s Guillermo Thomas Silva won the sprint for stage victory.
”I think everybody knew someone was going to crash with this pavement [road surface] and the bad luck was to us,” Morgado told TNT Sports. ”The road is completely slippery, everybody knew that is why there is a big fight, we went [on the] outside of the corner and crashed.
”Let us see, I also feel a little bit pained but we are not going to quit.”
Only four of the 179 riders left in the race sit below Yates on time, further boosting Vingegaard’s chances of winning his first Giro d’Italia.
The Dane went clear with Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Lotto-Intermarche outsider Lennert van Eetvelt, but the trio slowed before the final sprint and were caught by the peloton with under a kilometre to go.
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McEwan: ‘Whole face of the race has changed’ after Stage 2 crash
Video credit: TNT Sports
”It is a really treacherous sport and the racing is so close, one thing goes wrong for one person, there are 30 or 50 affected by it,” said TNT Sports’ McEwen, who won 12 Giro d’Italia stages in his glittering career, and like Thomas Silva, held the maglia rosa after Stage 2 in 2005.
”It is amazing to see how quickly a lot of the riders are able to just get up and go on but unfortunately in this case there are riders that could not and have had to go to hospital.
”But it is another reminder that it can happen in a split second, the whole face of the race has changed. The riders will all say ‘that is racing’. There is nothing you can really do in that situation. You do not know how slippery the roads are until you get there and something happens.
”And everybody is going to push on at the time and defend their position, try and be at the front, do what they need to do until they come undone and then they start to sit and think about it. But you saw after that how quickly they take it up again and get onto the next descent and race like nothing’s happened.”
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UAE were only thwarted on the final competitive day of racing 12 months ago after Isaac del Toro held the lead for 11 stages, but their 2026 priority for the rest of the race will now be limited to hunting stage wins and chasing the other jerseys.
UAE team principal Mauro Gianetti told TNT Sport: ”We were scared because we knew that the weather and the rain would make the roads very dangerous. And this happened. We have two riders, Jay Vine and Marc Soler, on the way to hospital.
”We just hope it is nothing too bad. Nothing is clear about their conditions for the moment. We are just waiting for information from the doctors. We do not know about Adam but it was impossible for him to be in the first group. It's very sad. We wish everyone from the other teams a speedy recovery.”
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‘It’s very sad’ – UAE boss gives update on riders after major crash
Video credit: TNT Sports
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