The former Giro d’Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart was forced out of the race on stage 11, before Pascal Ackermann won a dramatic sprint finish in Tortona.
The Ineos Grenadiers rider, who won the Giro in 2020, was riding with his teammates when he crashed heavily on a slippery descent with around 70km remaining. The overall leader, Geraint Thomas, also hit the deck but managed to continue.
Geoghegan Hart, third in the overall standings, was attended to by medics before being loaded into an ambulance. “The Brit will head to hospital for checks and we will have further updates in due course,” said Ineos Grenadiers on Twitter.
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Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) was also involved in the crash but managed to continue on a teammate’s bike. Shortly afterwards, the Movistar rider Óscar Rodríguez suffered a scary crash in which he came into contact with a roadside sign and almost hit a house.
Ackermann (UAE-Team Emirates) earned victory after a dramatic four-man sprint, with Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) outgunning Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) only for Germany’s Ackermann to come through on the inside.
Jonathan Milan (Bahrain-Victorious), the 22-year-old currently leading the points classification, continued his impressive Giro form with a late solo surge for second place, pushing Cavendish down to third place after the longest stage of this year’s race, a 291km ride from Camaiore.
Laurenz Rex (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) was the last man standing from the early breakaway, but the Belgian was caught with 2km to go. Moments later, another crash split the peloton leaving a reduced group to compete for the sprint finish.
This year’s weather-affected Giro has been hit with several high-profile withdrawals, with former race leader Remco Evenepoel having to abandon after testing positive for Covid. A further round of tests were made on the riders and staff which showed Soudal Quick-Step quartet Jan Hirt, Josef Cerny, Louis Vervaeke and Mattia Cattaneo had contracted Covid too.
