The Roar
The Roar

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Spectator decides to join the Giro d'Italia, causes a spectacular 30-man pile-up

Nairo Quintana has been in and out of the Giro's pink jersey, not that free-to-air viewers have been able to see it. (AP Photo/Gian Mattia D'Alberto)
Editor
12th May, 2015
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We’ve all had dreams of being a professional athlete, but for most of us the weight of the world, or the harsh reality of being nowhere good enough held us back. On Monday, however, one wannabe cyclist decided to fulfil his dreams and join the Giro d’Italia. It did not end well.

Some 12 kilometres from the finish of Stage 2, an unidentified spectator rode his bike alongside the peloton, then ducked under the barrier and rode out into the middle of the road.

Within seconds riders were going down, with the ‘fan’ ultimately causing an estimated 30 riders – around 15 per cent of the cyclists participating – to crash.

That afternoon Italian rider Eugenio Alafaci (Trek Factory Racing) took to Facebook and Twitter to rant about the crash, which saw both he and teammate Marco Coledan go down.

Ed ecco le immagini che vi fanno capire cosa è successo…non ci sono parole per descrivere la cazzata fatta da questo…

Posted by Eugenio Alafaci on Sunday, 10 May 2015

A partial translation: “If I get hold of the dickhead that had the bright idea of jumping into the peloton on a fixie with 10km to go, making us crash, I swear he’d be in for it.”

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Keeping up with the peloton is a punishing proposition, with the average speed along the flat somewhere around 45 kilometres an hour. Furthermore, there is an art to sitting in a bunch of dozens of other pros, hammering along at that pace, and not causing a crash. It’s not a casual Sunday ride you can just join in – and now we’ve got video evidence of what happens when you try!

Crashes are a part of cycling, and always have been. However they still manage to be controversial. Last year, Belgian cyclist Johan Vansummeren crashed spectacularly into an elderly female spectator, and she ended up in intensive care.

The Roar’s Lee Rodgers responded to the crash by saying he wished “people would stop putting [crashes] on YouTube”.

Fellow Expert John Thompson-Mills countered Lee’s argument by saying crashes are part of what make the sport great for spectators, even going so far as to say, “I want to see guys go down” during races. (Although he qualified it by saying, “Not hard, not so that they’re injured, not even so that it ruins their race, but just so it shows that even the best of the best are not immune to stacking it.”)

Whether crashes are good or bad for cycling will continue to be debated, although surely there’ll be no argument on the merits of one nutter on a fixie deciding he can join in the fun. It’s the equivalent of deciding you can play tighthead prop against the All Blacks – sure you’re going to get badly hurt, but your lack of expertise and training means those who pack down against you will get hurt too.

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