Michele Scarponi (Lampre-Merida) was one of the unluckiest riders in the peloton at the end of the third stage of the Giro d’Italia, between Sorrento and Marina di Ascea, as he was brought down in a crash with just under four kilometres to go. The 2011 Giro champion had been well placed at third in the group, which was chasing lone leader Luca Paolini (Katusha), but the two riders ahead of him - Blanco Pro Cycling’s Steven Kruijswijk and Robert Gesink - both came down on a tight hairpin and Scarponi had no way of avoiding them.
"I had succeeded in being at the head of the peloton all day long and I had also reacted in a good way to an attack by [Garmin-Sharp’s Ryder] Hesjedal on the Sella Catona climb,” Scarponi explained. “I was willing to cover the downhill to the arrival in the front of the group that had been selected by the climb, but the two cyclists that were ahead of me had problem in the bend and so I crashed.
Gesink was up quickly and managed to rejoin the group, while Kruijswijk - who had been the first to come down - was up a little slower; Scarponi, however, found that his bike’s rear derailleur had been snapped off and had to wait what seemed like an age for a replacement for his team car.
Along with teammate Przemyslaw Niemiec, Scarponi eventually got going again, but finished exactly a minute behind Paolini. With Cadel Evans (BMC Racing) leading the Scarponi’s former group home 16 seconds later, it meant that the Lampre-Merida captain had lost 44 seconds to his general classification rivals.
“I lost seconds, I know, but Giro is still very long,” he shrugged. “This does not mean that I'll attack in every stage.”
One consolation for Scarponi after the stage though is, while his bike was broken, he came out of the incident relatively unscathed.
“I wasn’t injured in the crash, only some bruises,” Scarponi confirmed.