‘I thought I saved it, but I didn’t make it’ – Race leader avoids injury in late crash in Giro d’Italia Women stage 3

Stage 3 of the Giro d’Italia Women was expected to finish in a mass sprint, but instead, a mass crash in a roundabout 2.5km from the finish took out dozens of riders and held up many more, leaving only eight riders to contest the victory.

Only a few riders escaped the carnage as they were ahead of the crash, with Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx Protime) winning the stage ahead of Josie Nelson (Picnic-PostNl).

Carina Schrempf (Fenix-Deceuninck) was the first to crash when her rear wheel slid in standing water on the inside lane of a roundabout.

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While Eleonora Gasparrini (UAE Team ADQ), Josie Nelson (Picnic PostNL), Lotte Kopecky, and Barbara Guarischi (both SD Worx-Protime) overshot the roundabout, they were able to return to the race route.

In the chaos behind, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) unclipped her right foot and rode across a traffic island to avoid the crash and numerous riders were held up and out of contention for the stage win, including race leader Anna Henderson (Lidl-Trek).

However, since the incident occurred within the last 3km, all affected riders received the same time as the stage winner, so there was no need for a frantic chase. Marlen Reusser even jokingly sprinted against her Movistar teammates when they crossed the finish line.

“There was a lot of stress from about 30 or 25 kilometres to go,” Henderson described the final after the stage.

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“A lot of teams lined up, then the rain came in and made all the roundabouts super slippery. It was kind of a waiting game when the crash was actually going to happen because it was super fast and slippery roads. You saw the big one on the roundabout, and I thought I saved it, but I didn’t make it.”

The maglia rosa escaped with only light injuries, and that seems to have been the case for the other crashed riders as well: The rain that caused the crash also helped avoid heavy injuries as riders slid along the wet asphalt instead of getting a hard impact.

Over the course of the evening, most teams gave the ‘all-clear’, and none of them announced any major injuries, meaning everyone escaped with no more than a fright.

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