A crash at the front of the peloton in the closing kilometres of stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia saw many of the major overall contenders caught up in and behind the accident on the roads into Gorizia-Nova Gorica.
Riders caught behind the multi-rider crash included Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), and Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers)
The crash happened near the front of the peloton on a narrow left-hand bend along roads slick from rain, with 23km remaining of the 195km stage between Treviso and the Italy-Slovenia cross-border city of Gorizia-Nova Gorica.
Several Lidl-Trek riders appeared to have been caught in the accident along with pre-race favourite and maglia ciclamino leader Mads Pedersen. The riders untangled themselves before getting back on their bikes, but too far off the back to contest the final.
Lidl-Trek’s GC contender Giulio Ciccone bore the worst of the crash. The Italian appeared in pain as he sat on the side of the road, holding his right leg, with two teammates waiting to support him.
The Italian, who was in seventh place in the overall classification at the start of the day, limped to his team car but put his helmet back on in an attempt to ride to the finish line, having lost valuable time in the overall classification. He got back on the bike with a six-minute deficit to the leaders.
Ciccone and Pedersen crossed the finish line surrounded by their teammates, 16:14 minutes behind stage winner Asgreen.
“Ciccone is losing the GC today, and we also lost the chance of fighting for the stage victory, but there are ups and downs in cycling, and this is a part of it,” Pedersen said in a post-race interview.
Among the GC contenders also caught in the crash were second-placed Ayuso, third-placed Tiberi, fifth-placed Roglič, and ninth-placed Bernal.
Ayuso, Roglič, Bernal, and the Colombian’s teammate Thymen Arensman chased at a minute down on the lead group, which included race leader Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). They crossed the finish line at 1:07 back on the day. Tiberi, however, finished two minutes back.
“To be honest, I don’t know, I just went into the crash. I think someone slid out in front of us, and I braked, but then behind me, someone hit me, which made me crash and hit another one in front,” Del Toro explained, also noting the change to the GC standings due to Ayuso’s involvement in the accident.
“I don’t know what happened, probably a slide in the front, a little bit of chaos in the back, and someone crashed. I tried to stand quickly and go to the front as fast as I could.
“I haven’t seen how we are now [in the overall classification] because it was chaos. I think it doesn’t change, but we will see with the team. It is not nice when these things happen in the races, but it’s a strange day.”
At the time of the crash, there was a three-rider breakaway up the road: Kasper Asgreen (EF Education-EasyPost), Mirco Maestri (Polti VisitMalta) and Martin Marcellusi (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), who held less than a minute over the main field.
A small group split off the front of the peloton, led by Visma-Lease a Bike with Wout van Aert and Simon Yates among those who were not caught behind the crash, as the rest of the field struggled to chase and gain back some of the time that was lost in the crash before the end of the stage.
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