Tadej Pogacar on Tuesday continued his dominance of the Giro d’Italia after pounding his way to victory in the shortened 16th stage, which started three hours late after riders rebelled at demands they race through snow.
Slovenian cycling superstar Pogacar burst to the fifth stage win — and second in a row — of his first ever Giro to take another big step toward a third triumph at a Grand Tour.
The two-time Tour de France winner could have held his position in the peloton and still led the three-week race handsomely, but he surged past Giulio Pellizzari in the final kilometer before holding five fingers aloft as he crossed the line.
Photo: AP
Pogacar gave Pellizzari his overall leader’s pink jersey as the pair embraced at the end of a tumultuous stage which was overshadowed by a revolt against race organizers RCS.
Riders were supposed to begin a 202km mountain stage between Livigno and Santa Cristina Val Gardena at 11:20am, but plans were changed after hours of discussion, confusion and anger within the peloton and the race began at 2:30pm.
The stage was twice shortened and eventually began in Laas, 118km from the finish, due to the hazardous conditions after a rider revolt against organizers who pushed for a full day’s racing.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The day started really on and off and we didn’t know what to do, but once we started racing it was fine,” Pogacar said.
At one point it looked like the day’s stage might not even begin as dreadful weather peppered the original start line in Livigno.
Shortly before noon in Italy, organizers RCS had said that riders were supposed to start a parade around snow-covered Livigno before heading to Prati allo Stelvio, 121km from the finish, where the stage proper would get under way at about 2pm.
However, there was no one at the start line despite RCS’ insistence on a start in Livigno, where local authorities had paid to have a Giro stage start in the ski resort.
“The riders are united on the issue,” Adam Hansen, president of the riders’ union, told broadcaster Eurosport, adding that they had voted unanimously to not participate in the stage as scheduled.
The start was then moved down to the valley and pushed back three hours so riders did not have to take the Giogo di Santa Maria pass, where the snow was falling heavily.
The peloton assembled in the shelter of a gas station before setting off, swaddled in rain gear, for the shortened run.
Ben O’Connor, who is fourth in the overall standings, called the Giro “one of the worst organized races.”
“This would never happen in 99 percent of other situations,” Australian O’Connor told Eurosport. “It’s just a shame that it is 2024 and you have dinosaurs who really don’t see the human side of things.”
French climber Valentin Paret-Peintre said that the peloton would only ride the full stage if RCS’ race chiefs “drive it in a convertible.”
Two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe, who went it alone with 30km remaining only to give up the ghost, joked that he would spend the day “making snowmen.”
TOOTHLESS: Bologna never looked like finding a way back, and Antonio Conte and his substitutes were waiting to celebrate long before the final whistle SSC Napoli on Monday lifted the Italian Supercoppa with a 2-0 win over Bologna in Riyadh, David Neres netting both goals to earn the league champions a deserved victory over the toothless Coppa Italia winners. Neres opened the scoring with a stunning strike from distance six minutes before halftime and found the net again in the 57th minute when Bologna were caught trying to play out of defense. “We came here as champions of Italy, we wanted this trophy and we showed it with a great performance,” Napoli forward Matteo Politano told Mediaset. “We could have scored a few more goals, but
Fulham on Monday climbed away from the English Premier League relegation zone and left Nottingham Forest mired in the fight for survival after Raul Jimenez’s penalty sealed a 1-0 win. Marco Silva’s side started the day just two points above fourth-bottom Forest, but Jimenez’s first-half goal at Craven Cottage moved them 10 points clear of the bottom three. While Fulham’s relegation fears were eased heading into the Christmas schedule, Forest are just five points ahead of third-bottom West Ham United in the scrap to avoid crashing into the Championship. Forest had won six of their previous eight games in all competitions, with a
Backup quarterback Luke Weaver on Wednesday night threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to Nick Cenacle with 10 seconds left, as the University of Hawaii rallied for a 35-31 comeback victory over the University of California, Berkeley in a thrilling Hawaii Bowl. Weaver entered the game after Micah Alejado took a hard hit on the previous play. With the Rainbow Warriors (9-4) in range for a tying field goal, coach Timmy Chang took a shot at the end zone, and Cenacle got between two defensive backs and made the contested catch. “How amazing is that?” Chang said. “It’s a program that is built
LACKLUSTER FIGHT: At one stage, the referee lost patience with the two fighters, warning them in the fourth round that ‘the fans did not pay to see this crap’ Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday knocked out YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in their controversial Netflix-backed bout in Miami. The fight at the Kaseya Center, which saw both men reportedly splitting a mammoth purse of US$184 million, had triggered alarm across boxing due to the gulf in physical size and class between Britain’s two-time former world champion Joshua and Paul, an Internet personality who has forged a lucrative career through a handful of novelty boxing contests. However, in the event, Joshua made hard work of defeating his vastly less accomplished opponent, before his superior size and power eventually told
RSS