Giro 2024: snow, threat of riders’ strike… How the weather conditions disrupted the 16th stage
Bad weather was expected, and it disrupted the organization of the 16th stage of the Giro, Tuesday May 21. The peloton was originally scheduled to set off from Livigno at 11:20 a.m. (fictitious start) for 206 kilometers, but bad weather conditions forced the organizers to change their plans. And above all gave rise to a standoff between RCS, the organizer of the race, and the runners.
As of Monday evening, the possibility of a change of route was raised. If the legendary Stelvio had already disappeared from the race, due to the risk of avalanche, the Giogo di Santa Maria, perched at an altitude of 2,498 meters, was still on the program and could represent a danger given the weather conditions. RCS therefore published a plan containing three options depending on the evolution of the weather.
On the day of the stage, the weather conditions did not improve, or even got worse. Before the start, the riders’ union CPA, chaired by Adam Hansen (WSA KTM Graz), sends a letter, signed by “100% of the runners”, to the race director: they will strike if the Giogo di Santa Maria passage is not removed.
Then comes a period of latency, where teams, runners and spectators – all in the rain – wait to find out more. “I don’t understand the situation, the weather is terrible, was surprised by the pink jersey Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) at the microphone of Eurosport. It’s very dangerous to go downhill. (…) I can run if they want. But I think it would be better to shorten the step. We’ll see what they decide, we hope there won’t be any problems in the race.”
“It’s probably one of the most poorly organized races, underlined Ben O’Connor, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale runner. This would never have happened in 99% of other situations. It’s 2024, there are still dinosaurs who don’t see the human side of things. It’s a shame. We have to start lower.” Same observation from Jasha Sütterlin, member of Bahrain Victorious: “It doesn’t make any sense, it’s nonsense. Whatever we do, we’re just frozen, we’re cold. For me, it’s impossible to do that kind of thing.”
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