Nicolas Roche has said when he passed the scene of the mass crash at the Giro d’Italia yesterday it was more like a war zone field hospital than a bike race.
“By the time all of the crash victims had scraped themselves off the road and rolled up to the back of the stoppage, the peloton looked like a field hospital in a war zone,” Roche writes in his Giro Diary in the Irish Independent.
Team DSM's Roche added when he saw his cousin Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) crashing and flying across the road later in the day he feared his race was over.
The aftermath of that crash by Martin was briefly shown on the TV coverage and despite the inconvenience, the Irishman got back on his bike and finished in the 80-rider peloton.
Advertisement
Roche said when the main crash occurred, on an exposed
causeway in windy conditions about 5km into the stage, his main concern was his
team leader Romain Bardet.
Related News
However, the Frenchman was uninjured, though his chainring was broken. Roche said the incident caused some panic before everyone realised the race was being temporarily stopped as the team cars and ambulances were stuck behind the riders on the causeway.
The Irishman explained within seconds of the start an expected crosswind turned into a tailwind. The bunch was instantly hitting 70kmph, as riders tried to make the day's breakaway. And even after the crash and the racing resumed, those speeds were maintained.
Later in the day, when the race went into Slovenia, Roche said he was shocked to see so many fans packed onto the Gornje Cervovo climb, with “absolutely nobody” wearing face masks.
“Apparently, you don’t have to wear masks in Slovenia any
more but, rather than feeling like a healthy pre-Covid environment, it felt a
bit awkward to have so many unmasked people shouting and cheering us on from
such a close distance,” he said.
You can read the full diary, today and every day, by following this link.
Topics
