Both, Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates were taken down of their bikes during a crash with a police motorbike. Both cyclists lost their hopes after a police motorbike suddenly caused them to crash.
Nairo Quantana eventually won the 9th stage of Giro d’Italia not letting the crash affect him like it did with Thomas and Yates.
Even though both, Welshman Thomas and also Spanish team-mate Mikel Landa who were teams Sky’s leaders during most of the Giro’s stages, suffered major losses of time after the crash which happened during the last 15 kilometers. The stage involved 149 km route in total, starting from Montenero di Bisaccia and finishing at Blockhaus.
How did the crash happen?
The reason behind this crash was a police motorbike pulled aside of the road. Policemen had pulled the motorbike on the left side of the road near the concluding 13.5 km of Blockhaus ascent.
Cyclists were not only riding in a high speed, they were also spread all across the road width. That is why; there was no place for Wilco Kelderman from Sunweb team to go.
NO!!
Most of @TeamSky, including @GeraintThomas86, are taken out by a police motorbike ? #Giro100 pic.twitter.com/iPJg7iXo4K
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) May 14, 2017
He eventually ended up hitting the stationary bike and tumbled. He then wiped out many others, especially from the Team Sky squad including both Landa and Thomas.
In an interview, after the crash, Thomas added: “It’s ridiculous. That shouldn’t happen. We were all racing for the bottom of the climb.
Next thing I know someone in front of me hits the motorbike, we go down. My shoulder popped out (of its socket) as well. I felt good, and then I crashed. That was it. Race over. It’s really disappointing. I’m a bit angry at the minute.”
The results…
Eventually, the stage was won by Quintana who finished 24 sec ahead of Pinot (second place) and Tom Dumoulin from Team Sunweb, followed by Nibali who was exactly one minute behind.
Nairo Quintana is the king of the Blockhaus #Giro100 pic.twitter.com/Zf3K7dYYjZ
— Giro d’Italia (@giroditalia) May 14, 2017
Currently, Quintana leads the race by 28 seconds from Pinot and Dumoulin in third place. Today’s the rest day for Giro d’Italia racers making Bauke Mollena fromTrek-Segafredo team to take time and focus his energies in winning.
He will need this day to move himself from the fourth place since he’s only 51 seconds behind the third one. Nibali gets to have the fifth place being one minute and 10 seconds behind.
