Derek Gee-West's Giro d'Italia GC chances took a significant but far from decisive hit after the Canadian was caught up in the massive crash that ripped through the race some 23 kilometres from the finish of stage 2. However, the damage done was not just because of his heavy fall and lone pursuit of the peloton that followed.
Gee-West was still regaining ground when the neutralised race restarted before the Lidl-Trek racer could actually make contact with the main group of favourites.
TV images of the Canadian road champion, fourth overall last year, blasting his way past one group of dropped riders after another on the Cat. 3 Lyaskovets Monastery climb, showed that he was not giving up without a fight, however, and he managed to limit his losses to just over a minute by the finish.
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Lidl-Trek sports director Bernie Eisel stopped to check on injured riders not from his team, such as Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who fell badly and suffered an important cut in his head. Yates could complete the stage, but as Eisel told Cyclingnews, it was a “very tough crash.”
Regarding Gee-West, the team issued an initial statement saying that both the Canadian and German sprinter Max Walscheid seemed ok, and that although there will be full medical checkups. "For the moment, however, it looks like both riders will fortunately be on the start line of stage 3."
"He's good, he's pretty battered but he managed to get through," Eisel told Cyclingnews about Gee-West.
"It looked really, really worrying when he got back on the bike, he was stopped there forever."
"Then when he got back on, we could only catch him a way after because for a moment I was checking up on other riders that crashed, especially Adam Yates.
"But we had riders in the middle of nowhere, on their own. It was just chaos."
For some five kilometres, the race remained on hold, but then, with 18 kilometres to go, the stage got going once more. Some riders, though, had not made contact with the front of the race.
"To see a rider like Adam Yates there like that - I wanted to give him a little bit of support and see how he is… he seemed ok," Eisel recounted, "and then we caught up with Derek and the race was neutralised."
"But then it was like - 'oh we have an ambulance and a doctor's car so now we race again.'
Eisel did not criticise the organisation or race commissaires for their decision to get the race going again in itself, but as he told Cyclingnews, it was hard to understand that they should opt to restart it exactly when they did.
"We saw guys like Derek and [Edoardo] Zambanini (Bahrain Victorious) a little bit off [behind] the group, so it's like when was the decision made again? If the ambulance went off and passed the riders that don't crash at 100 kilometres an hour, then we start racing again?" he asked rhetorically.
"I know it's not an easy decision. Was it wrong? It's hard to say sometimes in favour of some guys, sometimes in favour of others."
"But this was not a normal crash, it was a very tough one. I'm still a bit shocked, I just hope everybody is ok and recovers quickly."
Eisel's concern for Yates after the stage had ended was such that he even went across to the UAE team bus in person to check on the British rider's condition - but he was far from alone in doing so. All across the Giro team bus paddock after stage 2, in fact, riders and staff could be seen and heard asking members of other squads about the well-being and injuries of others caught up in the crash - the second such major pile-up in as many days in this year's races, and something everybody could do without.
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