Remco Evenpoel (Deceuninck-Quickstep) joined the battle for the overall win of the Vuelta a San Juan.

Evenpoel, Oscar Sevilla (Team Medellín), and Eduardo Sepulveda (Movistar) were among the riders who lost time after a group crash with 3.4km remaining in the opening leg to San Juan on Sunday.

Evenpoel rejoined the race and chased hard, but crossed the finish line 1:16 behind stage winner Rudy Barbier (Israel Startup Nation).

The incident occurred outside the banner with 3km to go, and it initially appeared that Evenpoel's bid for the overall win had been dealt a devastating blow. When the commissaires released the official results nearly two hours after the finish, Evenpoel was 76th overall, 1:26 behind overall leader Barbier after taking into account time bonuses.

Shortly after midnight on Sunday, however, the race jury, headed by Spain's Miguel Echezoltu, issued a short statement modifying its previous verdict. After reviewing video footage of the accident, they ruled that a spectator had leaned out into the road, causing the crash, and that the riders delayed by the accident should be given the same time as the lead group.

"After a crash that occurred 3.5 km from the finish line on the first stage of the Vuelta a San Juan, after viewing a video that clearly showed that the crash was caused by a spectator touching the handlebars of a rider, the Universidad Comissaire The decision was made to award the same time to all riders who were in the group at the time of the crash.

The statement was not accompanied by a revised result sheet, and even as late as Sunday night, there was still uncertainty about the exact outline of the overall results ahead of stage 2. However, it is clear that Evenpoel will start the stage just 10 seconds behind Barbier for the overall lead; the 20-year-old finished ninth overall in his professional debut in San Juan a year ago and started this year's race as the eventual winner.

Evenepoel crossed the finish line on Sunday with a chafed jersey and an abrasion on his left forearm. His teammate Julien Alaphilippe avoided crashing in the finale but suffered a 14-second delay on the final run-in after helping Alvaro Hodeg tee up for the group sprint.