Chaos as three teams start without all their riders in team time trial on Stage 1 of La Vuelta Femenina

The 2025 La Vuelta Femenina is up and running after a dramatic opening stage. Lidl-Trek stormed to victory in the team time trial, but only after a moment of madness saw three teams, Visma-Lease a Bike, Uno-X Mobility and Movistar, start their time trials without a full complement of riders. They all struggled to recover, with none of the teams bettering seventh.

'Looks like there's been timing issues' - Visma riders miss their start of TTT

Video credit: TNT Sports

There were chaotic scenes on the opening stage of La Vuelta Femenina as three teams were forced to start their team time trial run without a full complement of riders.

The Visma-Lease a Bike team of Marianne Vos, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, Femke de Vries, Marion Bunel, Maud Oudeman, Imogen Wolff and Viktoria Chladonova were all set to be involved from the beginning.

However, only five riders were ready for the start time, meaning the rest of Visma-Lease a Bike had to get their run underway without them.

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Movistar also struggled to make the start time, and were forced to start the time trial with a team of just six, while Uno-X Mobility had their own mishap.

The bizarre turn of events left the TNT Sports commentary team baffled.

"There are two riders missing," said Dani Rowe.

"You can see some of the riders are just looking around to see where they are.

"We saw that with the Movistar team, one of the riders rolling up extremely late.

"They didn't make the start but, oh dear, you can hear that five-second countdown and they don't have all their riders."

'A bit of a dodgy start' - Confusion as Uno-X-Mobility riders miss start of TTT

Video credit: TNT Sports

The three teams that started without all their riders struggled to recover from the mishap.

Movistar finished the time trial in seventh, while Visma-Lease a Bike took 10th. Uno-X ended up 11th.

One of the Visma-Lease a Bike riders appeared to join the race from behind the barriers according to another TNT Sports commentator.

"So they are going to have to roll straight away. As you said, they're waiting for their riders," added Marty MacDonald McCrossan on TNT Sports commentary.

"I think one is coming out of the barriers there as well, so it looks like there have been some timing and communication issues going on at the start, which is really unusual.

"Normally, everything is up on the campers, and they time how long does it take us to get from the trucks, from the campers to the start line."

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La Vuelta Femenina