Massive Crash and Groves' Victory

Road cycling is the largest open-air stadium in the world, but it also has its drawbacks. Regardless of the weather, there are no retractable roofs or enclosed arenas. Everything is done in the open air, or at most, when it's cold and descending a mountain pass, covered with the latest edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport tucked under the jersey, something that is becoming less common, but still has its supporters.

An old master of journalists, Emil Dovifat, used to say that nothing is older than yesterday's newspaper, a phrase that editors in the days of linotype and typewriters would harshly tear apart by telling aspiring great journalists that "that great story you intend to write will serve tomorrow to wrap fish." That expression is no longer valid, among other things, due to hygiene regulations that prevent fishmongers from using newspapers to wrap their goods.

However, those who write about cycling console themselves, at least, with the possibility that one of those great chronicles they try to draft might at least help alleviate the thermal sensation of some cyclist descending a mythical pass, even if they don't read it. Preferably a champion, but it doesn't matter if it's a domestique. Anything to help.

But in the sixth stage of the Giro, newspapers could offer little comfort, as there were no mythical passes to descend. Only rain, as persistent as the drought with which Francoist bigwigs excused water cuts. When it rains, there are raincoats made of modern materials. A copy of La Gazzetta tucked between chest and jersey only serves to leave body and garment tinted pink and black. It was more a day for raincoats and gloves, with cyclists forced to watch the road, puddles, curves, and remain in constant tension with fingers on the brakes, which on wet asphalt require a surgeon's touch to be used at the right moment. Caution against a fall, your own or someone else's, that could drag you down despite having all your senses on alert. Caution even when you see the disaster from afar.

Jan Hindley, the 2022 Giro winner, lacked that surgeon's touch. Or perhaps not, because the road was so slippery it seemed like soap. It hadn't rained in Naples and its surroundings for a while, and the first drops that fall on dry asphalt turn into a trap. On the first Sunday of May, the blood of San Gennaro liquefied again in the Basilica of Santa Chiara, and the phenomenon, which the church resists calling a miracle, has brought important rains to Campania.

Hindley went down in the middle of the peloton for no apparent reason other than the slippery road. Behind him, about thirty cyclists fell, a crash of bicycles colliding, brakes screeching, and cries of surprise. Ambulance sirens sounded in the background, and those who had avoided the fall and saw the gap with those left behind began to hesitate.

The Giro director neutralised the race with his car, and they rode for ten kilometres until they were ordered to stop. Cyclists and organisers conversed. Stefano Allocchio, deputy director, who knows the scene, reassured the riders. In the end, the organisers decided that the race would continue; they couldn't disappoint the thousands of Neapolitans who, for a few hours, forgot the fervour of the thrilling football battle with Inter for the Scudetto, in the land where Maradona is revered, to welcome the race that connects Italy.

However, the times wouldn't count; there would only be glory for the winner, so the race leaders took it easy. Only the two escapees, who started from the neutralisation with a 47-second advantage, and those trying to catch them, were keen to arrive quickly.

In Naples, it was no longer raining, and the ground was dry. The world could have been turned upside down on the cobbled section two kilometres from the finish, on Via Caracciolo, by the sea, but it didn't happen. Van Aert accelerated 500 metres from the finish, but his effort was in vain, as Alpecin carried Kaden Groves to victory, winning the stage, which only counts for his record. Leader Pedersen and the contenders for victory in Rome arrived much later. By the way, the winner's words contradicted the reason for the neutralisation: "I felt better when it started to rain."

Before the rain, the massive crash, and Groves' victory, in Potenza, the scene of the start, Juan Ayuso, the Spanish contender for the pink jersey, welcomed the arrival of the mountain stages. "Every day I have more race rhythm. The rest day helped me settle a bit. I think I'm improving with each stage. And Friday will be the first big test of this Giro, which, to be honest, has taken a while to get going," he noted.