A mass crash marred the closing kilometres of stage 2 of the Giro d’Italia, with dozens of riders held up by the autumn which partially blocked the route. Jay Vine (UAE Crew Emirates) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) have been among the many GC riders who misplaced 19 seconds within the finale in San Salvo.
Vine’s teammate Brandon McNulty, Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla) and Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), in addition to the EF Schooling-EasyPost trio of Hugh Carthy, Ben Healy and Rigoberto Urán of EF Schooling-EasyPost additionally misplaced the identical quantity after being caught behind the crash.
Some 30 riders have been in a position to steer across the crash, with Italian sprinter Jonathan Milan (Bahrain Victorious) claiming the host nation’s first win of the 2023 race.
Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) misplaced out on his hopes of contesting stage victory when he was caught up behind the crash, however the Manxman was not among the many fallers.
The crash seemingly was brought on when two riders tangled within the centre of the pack after which rippled out to the fitting facet of the peloton, on a bit of straight street in a quick, flat finale.
The crash befell some 800 metres earlier than the 3km to go banner, inside which riders are routinely awarded the identical time if caught up in a crash or puncturing.
“It was brought on when the street narrowed,” race commentator and former Giro d’Italia winner Stefano Garzelli instructed Italian tv.
Numerous Trek-Segafredo riders have been amongst these caught up within the fall, with Daan Hoole showing to be the worst affected, although the Dutchman was in a position to remount and full the stage. Different fallers included Movistar lead-out man Max Kanter and Martin Tusveld (Crew DSM).
Though race chief Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and arch-rival Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) weren’t affected by the crash, quite a lot of different GC contenders have been caught behind, most notably Geoghegan Hart.
The 2020 Giro winner was among the many finest performers in Saturday’s opening time trial, however he drops 4 locations to eighth general, 59 seconds behind Evenepoel. Vine is now tenth general at 1:05, however UAE Crew Emirates directeur sportif Fabio Baldato confirmed to Cyclingnews that the Australian had not been a faller within the crash.
One other general contender, Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), pulled off a profitable salvage operation after he was caught behind the crash. Helped by his teammate Nico Denz, Vlasov managed to chase again as much as end within the entrance group, and the Russian climbs three locations to seventh general, nonetheless 55 seconds off Evenepoel’s maglia rosa.
“At first Alex was caught behind the crash, however Nico Denz introduced him again as much as Remco’s group, so the lads did very effectively,” directeur sportif Enrico Gasparotto instructed Cyclingnews. “None of our guys fell, they’re all unscathed.”
Though the course narrowed simply earlier than the purpose of the crash, Gasparotto identified that the boundaries had been put in place as a way to fence off a sequence of bollards.
“All of the groups have been organised in entrance as a result of we’d all had vehicles driving forward to do the recon, so everyone had the knowledge,” Gasparotto mentioned. “I’ve accomplished 10 Giri as a rider myself, and the primary 10 days are at all times tense, with crashes. It’s a part of the sport, and it was most likely higher to have the boundaries there and keep away from the blokes using by these bollards at 60 kph.”
