{"id":192788,"date":"2023-05-19T15:47:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T15:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=192788"},"modified":"2023-05-19T15:47:13","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T15:47:13","slug":"weather-causes-more-disruption-at-giro-as-stage-13-is-shortened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2023\/05\/19\/weather-causes-more-disruption-at-giro-as-stage-13-is-shortened\/","title":{"rendered":"Weather Causes More Disruption at Giro as Stage 13 is Shortened"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chaos on this year\u2019s Giro d\u2019Italia just won\u2019t quit. The race has been badly disrupted by multiple cases of Covid and, especially, continuous rainfall that has caused many crashes and withdrawals. On Friday, as rain continued to lash the course, and much of Italy, organizers shortened stage 13 by more than half, to 76.4km, from the original 199km. The stage had already been slightly shortened earlier because of snowfall and a risk of avalanche on the Category 1 climb to the Passo Gran San Bernardo. That mountain was now totally erased from the stage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In a statement, race organizers RCS Sport said<\/a>, “Given the adverse weather conditions, especially on the Italian side, the Commission decided to meet the athletes’ requests by applying the Extreme Weather Protocol. Stage 13 will be shortened with the new km 0 being set at Le Chable, at the bottom of the Croix de Coeur. The final part of the stage remains unchanged. The race will follow the original timetable.”<\/p>\n

Riders appeared for the unofficial start in the morning, in pouring rain, only to ride a few hundred meters to waiting buses that took them to the new start line 500 meters from the foot of the Croix de Coeur, in Switzerland. The problem with this solution was that, as Eurosport reported, 19 of the 21 teams wanted to avoid that climb because of the long, steep descent from it over an iffy surface made slippery by rain and snow.<\/p>\n

The riders\u2019 wariness was understandable, given the number of withdrawals because of crashes. And two days earlier, on a descent in the rain on stage 11, an outside favorite for the GC, Thomas\u2019s teammate Tao Geoghegan Hart, crashed and fractured his rib. Thosmas also went down in that incident, as did as pre-race favorite Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, but they were not hurt.<\/p>\n

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\u261d\ufe0f\u261d\ufe0f\u261d\ufe0f\u261d\ufe0f#Giro<\/a> #GirodItalia<\/a> @Movistar_Team<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/fqaWa0mAfy<\/a><\/p>\n

— Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) May 19, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n