Cycling news - 'Living with a knife over your head' - Richard Carapaz reveals Movistar issues

Carapaz left Movistar at the end of last year to join Team Ineos, having won the Giro d’Italia in 2019.

He battled for leadership at Movistar, including with Mikel Landa during the Giro, and his loyalty was questioned by team director Pablo Lastras in Netflix documentary 'El dia menos pensado' [The least expected day], which covers the whole of Movistar's 2019 season.

Carapaz, though, says he has no regrets over his departure and "owes them nothing".

"Living those circumstances is very difficult," he said in a YouTube interview with extreme athlete Valenti Sanjuan.

"It's like having a knife over your head and not knowing when it will fall. There were situations in the race where both of us were there and you didn't know who was riding for whom.

Carapaz is set to target the Giro again this year and looks likely to be Team Ineos' leader, with Egan Bernal, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas targeting the Tour de France.

"Ineos told me, ‘Richard, we are going to adapt to you, it is not you who has to adapt to us.’ At Movistar, I didn’t have the opportunity to have a group adapt to me,” he said.

"Ineos looks like NASA. When I came here, there were many things that surprised me that I had never experienced before."