Today's Giro d'Italia stage in Holland didn't go as well as Carlos Sastre (Cervélo TestTeam) had hoped. The 209 kilometer ride from Amsterdam to Utrecht was marred with crashes, and in the closing kilometers the Spaniard found himself caught up one of the day's many pile-ups.
“It's a shame, as I was well positioned throughout and I did try to avoid being involved in the many falls that took place, but just 7 km from the finish there was a fall at the front of the pack which I was involved in,” he explained after the race.
Sastre worked quickly to fix his damaged bike, with his team staying behind to help their leader with the chase.
“The team was with me a hundred percent, and we managed to catch up with the second group, which Wiggins was riding in, and minimise the damage as much as possible so as not to lose any chances in this year's Giro,” he said.
The front group included several of Sastre's rivals for overall victory - Ivan Basso, Cadel Evans and Alexandre Vinokourov were all able to avoid the chaos and ended up gaining 34 seconds on the Cervélo leader.
The 2008 Tour de France winner described the day as “action-packed and pretty stressful”, because of the constant battle for real estate at the front of the peloton.
“It’s been a very fast stage throughout, with a lot of junctions, bends and little traffic islands ... there were so many dangerous parts that you had to try and keep to the front,” he concluded.
Fortunately for the climber, he'll have plenty of opportunities to make up the time lost from now until the finish in Verona. Only then will the impact of today's time loss be known.