🚨 Chaos in Algarve as majority of peloton takes wrong turn in sprint finish
Ganna wins but then doesn’t win, and Politt ponders whether race organisers should receive yellow cards
It was shaping up to be a relatively calm or at least predictable day at the Volta ao Algarve. The warm spring sunshine, the picture postcard seafront, the fans being treated to some Carly Rae Jepsen on the loudspeaker. With a sprint finish to come, what more could you possibly want from a mid-February race?
With around 5km to go, the sprinters’ teams hit the front. At the finish line in Lagos, the entertained fans watched on the big screen as the final kilometres counted down.
Then, everything changed. At first, it wasn’t clear what was happening, but when the bunch rounded the final right-hand corner and split into two portions, it was apparent that something was wrong. When it became evident that most of the peloton was hurtling down a deviation road packed with fans and cars, and that only a handful of riders were still on the actual race course, alarm bells began to sound. Imagine the horror of thinking Call Me Maybe will be the last song you ever hear.
On the side of the road where the race was supposed to be, Filippo Ganna looked as surprised as anyone when he crossed the finish alone. Even the Italian wasn’t quite sure what had happened, and as he rode to the Ineos Grenadiers bus to warm down, the commissaries sprung to life with their clipboards at the ready.
Initially, the news was positive, for Ganna at least, with the Ineos rider awarded the stage and the first leader’s jersey of this year’s race. The Italian rose from the turbo trainer outside the Ineos bus and soft-pedalled to the podium, but after a long delay, word began to spread that the Italian wouldn’t be awarded for his ability to stick to the race course and hold off what was left of the bunch. Nor would there be a leader’s jersey or a result of any note for the stage.