What changed
Tom Pidcock said he wanted to stop racing after a police vehicle travelling the wrong way on the Tre Valli Varesine course hit his Pinarello-Q36.5 team-mates Marcel Camprubi and Thomas Gloag in Varese, Italy.
The collision happened with six laps left. Camprubi continued, while Gloag stopped and needed stitches in his knee. Pidcock finished second behind Belgium’s Jarno Widar but said he was “mad” that riders had ended up on the ground.
Why it matters
A closed race course is supposed to give cyclists one clear job: race. Instead, Pidcock and his team-mates had to deal with a vehicle moving against them on the circuit.
That changes the meaning of the result. Pidcock still reached the podium, but his immediate thought was to stop rather than chase the win. For Gloag, the race ended with medical treatment instead of a finish.
Pidcock connected the crash to the August death of 19-year-old British cyclist Finlay Tarling, who died during the Volta a Portugal after colliding with a van that had entered its closed road. Camprubi also posted that riders should not have to risk their lives to race, writing that the accidents must stop.
The circumstances that put the police vehicle on the course remain unclear. The next important question is whether organisers and Italian police investigate what happened and whether safety measures change before another race uses the same kind of road closure.
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