Remco Evenepoel crashes after dog runs into road in shocking moment at Giro d’Italia on Stage 5
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Updated 10/05/2023 at 12:21 GMT
A stray dog caused carnage on Stage 5 at the Giro d’Italia by sparking a big crash, with pre-race favourite Remco Evenepoel among those to hit the deck on another miserable day in Campania. Evenepoel is aiming to win a second Grand Tour after his victory at La Vuelta last year, but he suffered a huge scare after the incident with 152km remaining on Wednesday’s rain-soaked stage.
'Evenepoel is down!' - Shocking moment dog causes crash at Giro
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) was sent crashing to the tarmac after a stray dog ran into the peloton’s path on Stage 5 at the Giro d’Italia.
It initially appeared the Belgian’s dream of winning a second Grand Tour was over as he sat wounded on the tarmac for over a minute, but he belatedly returned to his feet and re-joined the race.
His entire cohort of team-mates, some of whom also hit the deck, surrounded him as they began the slog to get back into the peloton. Fortunately for Evenepoel and Soudal-QuickStep, it was not a particularly challenging chase due to the torrid conditions.
The incident occurred with 152km remaining of the run from Atripalda to Salerno, when a dog suddenly charged towards the peloton from the side of the road. It prompted brakes being slammed on in the bunch, sparking a domino effect that caused a number of riders, including pre-race favourite Evenepoel, to hit the deck.
Evenepoel was later pictured giving a thumbs up to the camera and he soon re-joined the main group after clambering back onto his bike.
The team spirit showed by Soudal-Quick Step was impressive in coming to their star man's aid, particularly after their strategy and approach on Stage 4 was questioned on The Breakaway post-race show.
"I think a lot of mistakes were made by that team, right from the get-go," Adam Blythe said. "You had a lot of riders committing full gas to bring a group of 14 riders back at one point. We were questioning why they were chasing it down because they were no real threat to the GC.
"Yet they were adamant about bringing it back and rode hard for at least 10, 15 minutes, then after that, more attacks came and that was in the first 20km of the stage and it went on for another 60km after that. So it was a knock-on effect and it got worse.
"I think the other teams are going to be like this [rubbing their hands together] looking at that because if they make it hard at the start as they did today, if they try to isolate Remco from his team, I'm pretty sure they will know they can do it now.
"They will look for a day with a hard start and they will play the numbers game and really put him under pressure. That is when we could see Remco really under pressure on his own for the first time."
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'They've got to learn a lot' - Reaction to Evenepoel's Soudal-Quick Step team slipping
Dan Lloyd added: "It is a bit of a worry for them. I just don't think they needed to put as much effort in at the start as they did when that group was going up the road.
"It did not have anyone particularly dangerous. I'm not quite sure why they decided to chase that down as they did.
"The even more worrying thing for me is that [Louis] Vervaeke and [Ilan] Van Wilder were getting distanced and those are two riders that I think we all thought were going to be around Remco Evenepoel until very late into the big mountain stages to come.
"Today was not a huge mountain test, so unless there is something wrong, that is a bit of a worry for them going into the final week of the race if they are defending the pink jersey and they can't stay with Remco deep into the mountain stages, and it is going to make it very tough to win this race."
Robbie McEwen agreed: "They have got to take a risk and take a gamble at some point and see if it comes off. Is another rider really good enough to go on with it, go up the road and distance Remco? Do they dare going that far out?
"They [Soudal-Quick Step] are certainly not a team that traditionally has been a GC team. Even now, they are not a team you would look at and say that is the next Sky, Ineos or Jumbo-Visma.
"They are still trying to build that out around Remco, but that is going to take a bit of time to set that up and get the right riders in place.
"They made some mistakes and going on through the race, they have got to learn a lot from what happened today, be a bit more conservative and a bit more intelligent in how they go about riding."
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