Every bike rider, no matter their role in the race or the expectation surrounding them, has one overbearing aim in the first week of a Grand Tour: to survive it intact. The opening week is full of traps, nerves and stresses that invariably leads to crashes, injuries and abandonments. This is never more true than at the Giro d’Italia. In just the past few years alone Geraint Thomas and Mikel Landa have both had their dreams scuppered before the race truly got underway.
The 2026 edition has just taken things to an all new level. If stage one’s finale was bad enough, a mass pile-up blocking the road with 600m to go and permitting only a dozen sprinters to contest the finish and eventually leading to the withdrawal of Pinarello-Q36.5’s Matteo Moschetti, then stage two was a nightmare.
With the rain falling hard in central Bulgaria, all it took was for one rider’s wheel to slip on the sodden surface to cause carnage and end the races of another five riders. Within a split second of the first rider going down, bodies flew over one another, landed on top of others or against road furniture, and bikes somersaulted in the air. The images were vivid, possibly even too gruesome to be broadcast on TV. Adam Yates’ face was covered in blood, while multiple riders gingerly got up off the ground, inspecting their clothing that was now pockmarked with holes.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG, already without their planned leader João Almeida, were the worst hit: Yates made it to the finish in Veliko Tarnovo, almost 17 minutes adrift of surprise stage winner Guillermo Thomas Silva of XDS Astana (talk about an historic achievement for the Uruguayan being overshadowed), but Marc Soler and Jay Vine were not so lucky. The latter, certainly not unaccustomed to abandoning bike races, was placed on a stretcher and into the back of an ambulance. Soler, in combative form as ever all season and one of UAE’s big hopes in their stage-hunting quest, similarly failed to remount his bike.
Anguish hit other big teams, too. Not so long ago, Aleksandr Vlasov was leading Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in Grand Tours. Nowadays he’s there to support Giulio Pellizzari and Jai Hindley. Or rather, he was. The Russian was also caught up, injured, and is on his way home. The same misfortune befell Bahrain-Victorious’ Santiago Buitrago, a two-time stage winner in the race, and Uno-X Mobility’s Ådne Holter. There were so many riders involved that it wouldn’t be a surprise if the number of withdrawals grows overnight.
This was not yet another safety issue that ought to lead to fingers being pointed. It was simply a typical bike racing crash that can happen on wet roads. This is a dangerous sport, one fraught with risks. Crashes happen, injuries are sustained. It’s not nice, and never desirable, but it’s the unfortunate realities of bike racing.
Beautiful Bulgaria – but beauty is not what the race will be remembered for. (Image: Zac Williams/SWPix.com)
What is also true is that the succession of crashes is marring the Giro’s three-day visit to Bulgaria, the first time it’s ever visited the country. So enthused by the chance to host a major sporting event, the Bulgaria government threw a reported €12.5m at organisers RCS to bring the race to eastern Europe. Not content with having the race based out of the capital Sofia, the local organising committee called for and ultimately secured a three-day trajectory that traverses west to east across the country, from the Black Sea coast, into the Balkan Mountains and then into Sofia. It’s a logistical headache for teams, but money talks and money wins, and here was a golden opportunity to show off Bulgaria to potential new tourists, a chance to convince the watching world that Bulgaria should be their next holiday destination.
Yet just like in Albania last year, the weather Gods haven’t played ball. The lasting images of the Giro’s Bulgarian excursion will likely be of riders picking themselves up off the floor, and not of the locals who came out to support and welcome the Giro. It’s unfair, a cruel twist that wouldn’t have been mentioned on the brochure when Bulgaria opted to part with millions of euros of public money to bring the Giro to town, but this is bike racing. These things unfortunately happen. The race can only hope the third stage in Sofia passes without incident.
It’s not the focus right now, but the bigger picture in all of this is that Jonas Vingegaard’s task of winning the maglia rosa has just gotten even easier with UAE so depleted, Red Bull also down a man, and Bahrain without their GC leader. Then again, the Dane still has to avoid the trappings of a first week Giro. He’ll be even more aware and wary of that now. They say that you can’t win a Grand Tour race in the first week, but you can definitely lose it. And they’re not wrong. Just ask UAE.
Cover image: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images
