Giro d’Italia: Ackermann at the photo finish. More falls (Geoghegan Hart and Rodriguez in the hospital) and cases of Covid

TORTONA – The word tranquility is banned from this crazy Giro d’Italia. The cases of Covid and bad weather weren’t enough, the rankings are also made by falls. The third in the general classification, Tao Geoghegan Hart, did not reach the finish line in Tortona. His race stopped 60 km from the finish, in the insidious but not too technical descent of the Colla di Boasi: a crash in the bend and a half Ineos, including the pink jersey Geraint Thomas, went down. Poor Tao had the worst, taken away by ambulance to the Sampierdarena hospital with a suspected fracture in his femur. Roglic also went off the road in the same crash, but restarted like Thomas. A few km further on another terrible fall: Oscar Rodriguez ended up against the corner of a house on a bend after hitting a road sign. Race over for him too. Sivakov went out of the standings and so the pincer tactic of Ineos failed even before being put on the road. Thomas will have to beat Roglic with his own legs, the Slovenian who arrived at the finish line with a big cut next to him. But all of this seems like a small, minimal detail and something incredibly distant from the daily reality of a Giro that is very unpredictable in the long run. Success in the sprint in Tortona for Pascal Ackermann over Milan and Cavendish, pink jersey again for Geraint Thomas. But it all happened again.

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Geraint Thomas himself comments on the fall 60m from the finish: “Slippery descent. Covi fell and luckily I fell on top of him. Tao is in hospital, I hope he’s okay, Roglic also fell. From a personal point of view I was lucky, I had a soft landing. Everything changes, Tao was in a great position, he could have won the Giro, it’s a very hard blow for the whole team. I spoke to Roglic, I saw that he has a big cut on his hip, I hope it can continue.”
“I left a piece of meat on the asphalt, but now I’m going to take a shower and it will definitely get better,” explains Roglic, who also has a conspicuous bloody skin on his thigh.

Eight cases of Covid in one day

Eight did not show up for the signature sheet in Camaiore. Four of Remco Evenepoel’s Soudal (Vervaeke, Hirt, Cattaneo and Cerny, the Belgian team reduced to three men), Caicedo, Tesfatsion, Gandin and Vendrame, all at home due to Covid. The total infected since the beginning of the Giro are thus 18. The virus situation seems to be getting worse day by day and the weather doesn’t help the riders find reasons to smile. More cold, more rain from Camaiore to Piedmont, passing through the Riviera di Levante and inland Liguria. A 6-man breakaway goes away, the last one to resist is the Belgian Rex (Intermarché), but this time the group doesn’t miss the times and goes for the general sprint. The finale takes place on rather dry asphalt. The group breaks up due to a crash in a corner, Gaviria also crashes and we go to the sprint. Pedersen takes the lead, Cavendish overtakes him, Milan also goes out, who goes twice as fast as the others but starts too far behind. The winning backstroke is that of the German Pascal Ackermann (UAE) by centimeters over Jonathan Milan (sprint however sub judice, revised in the Var for a clear shift from left to right of the Friulian in the last 200 meters), Cavendish third.