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.
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.
"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.
Subscribe to Cyclingnews for unlimited access to our Giro d'Italia Women coverage. Don't miss any of the breaking news, reports, and analysis from one of the biggest women's stage races of the season. Find out more.
