{"id":604176,"date":"2026-05-26T05:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604176\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T05:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:02:10","slug":"disqualified-giro-rider-speaks-of-injustice-explains-headbutt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604176\/","title":{"rendered":"Disqualified Giro Rider Speaks of Injustice, Explains Headbutt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enrico Zanoncello says that broader context behind controversial Giro d’Italia clash was not understood.<\/p>\n

\"Enrico<\/p>\n

Enrico Zanoncello (Team Bardiani CSF 7 Saber) was disqualified from the Giro d’Italia (Photo: Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images) (Photo: Dario Belingheri)<\/p>\n

Published May 25, 2026 11:08AM<\/p>\n

A blatant headbutt or a misunderstood situation? Enrico Zanoncello has spoken out about his disqualification from the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/a>, insisting that there was a wider context to Sunday\u2019s collision with Robert Donaldson.<\/p>\n

The incident happened during the sprint finish on stage 15 to Milan. As captured by TV cameras, VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizan\u00e8 rider Zanoncello lurched to the right and his head made contact with Donaldson\u2019s left arm.<\/p>\n

The Team Jayco AlUla rider lost balance and hit the ground. The UCI<\/a> jury reviewed the footage and decided to disqualify Zanoncello from the race.<\/p>\n

On first viewing, the case looks cut and dried. However Zanoncello has written his account on social media and while he apologises for what happens, he insists there is a wider context that is not being acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sincerely feel sorry for the guy involved in the fall,\u201d he wrote on social media on Monday. \u201cI never wanted it to end this way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very chaotic fight, I got a left shoulder, lost control of the bike and at that moment I had no space left to avoid contact. Even the headbutt was a consequence of the fact that I was trying to regain control.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was never any intention to harm or endanger anyone. I\u2019m really sorry about what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not happy with the decision, believing important context was not understood by the UCI jury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also this it\u2019s an injustice to judge what happened based only on a short clip; seeing the full pictures, the dynamics seem different and clearer,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking myself out of the responsibilities of the accident, leaving the Giro d\u2019Italia this way hurts and it\u2019s definitely not how I wanted it to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

He ended his post by wishing \u201call the best and a speedy recovery to those involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zanoncello finished ninth and tenth on earlier stages of the race. In addition to his disqualification, he was given a yellow card plus a fine of 1000 Swiss francs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enrico Zanoncello says that broader context behind controversial Giro d’Italia clash was not understood. Enrico Zanoncello (Team Bardiani…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,45284,101,66373,206014,96877,206015,45288,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-604176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-road","tag-sports","tag-tag-giro-ditalia","tag-tag-rider-safety","tag-tag-uci","tag-tag-yellow-cards","tag-type-article","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}