Filippo Ganna saw his general classification hopes at the Tour of Britain go up in smoke on stage 2, as the Italian suffered a mechanical problem just as the peloton was splitting in the crosswinds.
Despite the early crosswinds passing by without incident, the race suddenly came to life with 60km to go on Thursday's flat stage to Skegness, and the peloton split in two.
Just as the two groups were splitting, Ganna, second overall after his runner-up finish on stage 1, appeared off the back of the race with his arm in the air, appealing for assistance for what looked to be a puncture.
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Former racer Geraint Thomas, who retired at last year's Tour of Britain and is now Netcompany-Ineos' Director of Racing, scrambled from the passenger seat of the team car to help. As a mechanic grabbed a new bike from the roof rack, Thomas delivered the push-off to get Ganna back up to speed.
The damage, however, was done, and Ganna was left scrambling in group of around 50 riders, which quickly found itself almost a minute down on the main pack of 40, where the key sprinters and GC riders were all located.
With the exception of their sprinter, Sam Welsford, Netcompany-Ineos put their whole squad in the second group to chase, with some assistance on hand from the Flanders-Baloise team. However, despite moving to within 30 seconds of the lead group with 35km to go, by which point they were in sight, the gap never closed.
In fact, from there it only yawned out again amid the merciless pace-setting in the lead group, where the sprint teams, along with UAE Team Emirates-XRG – who don't have a sprinter but several GC cards – all rode hard and in unison.
By 10km to go, the gap was back out to one minute and the cause was lost. Ganna eventually crossed the line in 67th place, 1:43 down on the front of the race. He drops to 10th overall, 1:53 down on the leader Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling)
In a race that's expected to be decided by tight margins, with stage 4 the toughest day of the race but still light on climbing, Ganna had been considered among the possible contenders. And he'd made a strong start, powering up Michaelgate in Lincoln to place second on a stage that saw small gaps.
Stage 1 winner) Askey remains in the overall lead, with UAE possessing a strong hand with Tim Wellens in second at 12 seconds.
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