It will come as little comfort to Simon Yates after losing the pink jersey of the Giro d’Italia on Friday, but he is not alone in his fate. The race has witnessed some epic collapses in its closing mountain stages in recent years. In 2016, Vincenzo Nibali, famously, took advantage of a catastrophic breakdown and crash by the Dutchman Stephen Kruijswijk en route to the French ski resort of Risoul with two days to go, while in 2002, the young Australian Cadel Evans cracked with four days remaining, slipping from pink jersey to an anonymous 14th overall.
It is the eternal fascination of stage racing, for the onlooker at least, that this sort of disastrous event can happen and occasionally does. In an era where fans and media have become used to the idea that everything can be predicted and dialled in, it is a welcome reminder that the participants are human beings, as frail as the rest of us for all the superhuman feats that they attempt, and usually achieve.
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