Giro d’Italia 2023: Adam Blythe predicts ‘huge uproar’ after Stage 2 time losses following big crash

The high-speed incident tool place with less than 4km from the finish, with Mark Cavendish the biggest name to fall and many others seeing their GC hopes take a huge hit.

Among those hit hardest was Tao Geoghegan Hart whose brilliant performance in Saturday’s time trial counts for little now, but Blythe had little sympathy for those teams affected.

Speaking on The Breakaway with Orla Chennaoui, Robbie McEwen and Dan Lloyd, he said: “There will be a huge uproar with the teams tonight for the GC riders that have lost time.

“I don’t agree with it (all affected riders being given the same time because of the crash) just because they got the information beforehand, and we’ve seen teams coming up trying to position their riders.

“They’ve come up too early, they’ve slid back into the peloton. Then you question the riders, ‘why weren’t you further up?’ Well, because the team didn’t do that. But you had the information, why didn’t you wait, why didn’t you do more?”

Blythe explained that had the incident taken place further back, there would not have been an issue due to the 3km rule which states any riders having issues inside the final 3,000 metres are given the same time as the stage winner.

“The 3km rule is if you have a puncture or crash within the last 3k, you get the same time as what the winner gets across the line, so you don’t have to worry,” he added. “If you’ve had a puncture, you can roll across the line and you’ll be given the same time.

“If there’s a split, there’s a split and if you’ve not had a problem, then you’ll be given the time you were behind.”

“What happened today was with 3.4km to go and you can imagine that all the teams tonight will be complaining about that narrowing of the road. It wasn’t safe enough and they were caught behind because of that.”

Attention now turns to Stage 3 which begins on Monday with a 216km route from Vasto to Melfi. This will see riders take a picturesque route which will see them go past an extinct volcano that will suit riders like Primoz Roglic very well indeed.

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