As the rain fell properly for the first time at the 2025 Giro d’Italia, with it came the chaos that often occurs in the May slot on the calendar, with a “super slippery road” 71km from the finish in Naples causing a mass crash and forcing several riders to abandon the race.
Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was the highest profile rider to leave the race, but stage 6 also saw the maglia rosa Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) hit the deck at high speeds and not contest the finish, with the crash rippling through the bunch and forcing organisers to neutralise racing for 11km.
Other important GC names who crashed include Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), but both finished with what looked to be mainly superficial injuries. Three riders left the race due to the crash, with lots still to come out in the wash before the start of stage 7 in Castel di Sangro.
As the sprint was won by Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), riders eased home to the finish in Naples in dribs and drabs, with several sporting torn kit and various bloody scrapes and bruises, after a brutal day of racing on the 108th Giro’s longest stage.
The GC times for the stage were neutralise, meaning no one lost time, and many took the opportunity to ease up in the final.
“I crashed, so that’s never easy. It could be a lot worse, but of course it could be better. I crashed at 65 plus [kilometres] an hour, so that’s never good for the body, and of course I feel that,” said race leader Pedersen after the finish.
“It was on a fast downhill. Suddenly, bikes were everywhere, and then I lost my bike from under me as well, and then I was just sliding. It was a super slippery road, and then everything happened in a split second.
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“I just hit the floor really hard with my right side. Of course, after a hit like that, it’s never good for the body, but nothing is broken, no big wounds or anything, so I think it will be okay, but it’s going to be a harder sleep tonight for sure.”
Pedersen didn’t contest the sprint, willing to give up the 50 maglia ciclamino points on offer because of the pain he was feeling in his right hip, with there still being a long way to cover on the road to Rome on stage 21.
Another team who had several riders go down, including their GC hope Derek Gee, was Israel-Premier Tech. After his team assessed the damage initially at the bus, they said the Canadian was okay, with Corbin Strong also not too badly damaged following the crash, however, Jan Hirt was in much more pain and may not continue.
“Derek’s fine, he’s probably the same as about 120 other bike riders, a few scratches and bruises, but he’s alright,” said DS Sam Bewley to Cyclingnews and Daniel Benson’s Substack, before explaining how his riders explained the incident.
“It was a super slippery road, I’ve only seen the video, but the crash looked like it was at the front and basically everyone behind, as soon as you touched the brakes, you went down.
“Obviously, you saw a lot of guys go down, and I don’t think it really mattered where you were; it was just luck whether you got through or not.”
Bewley explained how no equipment choice could’ve prevented what happened, with crashes as the race saw on Thursday simply being a by-product of the, at times, treacherous roads in Italy’s south.
“It happens every now and again, especially in the south of Italy, these roads are like ice when they’re wet, so it doesn’t take much, all it takes is somebody to break a little bit at the wrong time or whatever, and there’s nothing you can do,” said Bewley.
“There’s no tyre or tyre pressure or anything that’s going to save you in those situations, unfortunately.”
On the decision to neutralise and not take GC times, riders were in support of how things played out, with safety being paramount. With the riders targeting overall allowed to roll into Naples at their own pace, it meant a race could still be contested as planned.
“For a while it was just raining, not so cold, nothing special, but in the final, we hit one really slippery descent and this crash can always happen, of course,” Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) told reporters at the finish.
“But I have to say, they did a really wise decision to slow us down, neutralise the race until everybody had the time to come back. On the slippery roads, it was a good decision also that they didn’t take times on GC.”
“We can talk about that now and for the next many years, but the decision was made and the organisers still got a race, so I think everything was fine,” agreed pink jersey wearer Pedersen.
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