{"id":696565,"date":"2026-05-27T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T06:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/696565\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T06:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T06:30:15","slug":"giro-boss-pushes-back-after-vingegaard-safety-complaints-in-milan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/696565\/","title":{"rendered":"Giro boss pushes back after Vingegaard safety complaints in Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed a bit of drama in Milan on Sunday. Well, apart from a crash after the whole headbutt thing\u2013that took down Team Jayco AlUla\u2019s Robert Donaldson, as well as Sainte-Lucie-des-Laurentides, Que.\u2019s Nick Zukowsky. The riders had safety concerns about the finishing circuits in the Italian city, and the organizers are not too fond of how it was all handled.<\/p>\n

The fallout from Sunday\u2019s Giro d\u2019Italia stage into Milan continued on Monday, with race organizer Paolo Bellino publicly criticizing the riders\u2019 complaints about safety on the city laps.<\/p>\n

Rider safety concerns<\/p>\n

Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/a>, the RCS Sport CEO said the peloton\u2019s reaction, led in part by race leader Jonas Vingegaard, crossed a line after officials decided to stop the general classification times before the final lap of the stage. The Dane was seen talking to the race jury. At one point in mid-conversation as he held on to the side of the car, he even hit a pothole and said, \u201cLook, I almost crashed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Zukowsky after Giro crash on Sunday: \u2018Feels like I got hit by a truck\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the riders went too far with what was said,\u201d Bellino told the Italian outlet. He defended the Milan circuit, calling it \u201cbeautiful, very well designed and not dangerous,\u201d while insisting organizers had carefully inspected the route beforehand.<\/p>\n

Sketchy roads in Milan<\/p>\n

The decision to neutralize GC times came after several riders raised concerns about road furniture, uneven pavement and manhole covers on the urban finishing circuit. Originally, times were frozen with 15.9 km remaining, effectively removing the overall contenders from the fight before the finale.
Vingegaard later explained that discussions inside the bunch had become impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe riders all thought that this might not have been the safest course to race on,\u201d the Dane said afterward, noting there were \u201cmany holes in the road and all kinds of elevations and manhole covers.\u201d
The Visma-Lease a Bike leader added that riders approached race officials directly and appreciated that the jury \u201creally listened to us\u201d before making the call.<\/p>\n

Still, Bellino maintained the Giro had already offered compromises, saying organizers were prepared to stop the clock at five km from the finish if necessary, but not nearly 16 km out.<\/p>\n

History repeats<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the last time the Giro used a finishing circuit in Milan (the city has hosted finishes and time trials since, but not repeated laps like Sunday\u2019s stage) was back in 2009, when riders also complained about the road surface.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the only drama after the stage. A four-man breakaway somehow made it to the finish and what followed was a whole bunch of accusations about race motorbikes perhaps helping the escape stay clear.<\/p>\n

Lidl-Trek\u2019s Max Walscheid said that<\/a>, \u201cWe went full gas all day. It\u2019s not possible to stay away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Race motos shouldn\u2019t play a role in Tuesday\u2019s stage. Stage 16 from Bellinzona to Car\u00ec may be short (113 km) but the summit finish is 12 km long with an average gradient of 8 per cent, with multiple pitches much steeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may have noticed a bit of drama in Milan on Sunday. Well, apart from a crash after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[142395,49,48,635,5900,63918,82],"class_list":["post-696565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-giro-ditalia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-nick-zukowsky","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}