It is uncomfortable and shivering to see horses crashing in the mad race of the Palio twice a year, but Piazza del Campo cannot be redesigned to smooth out the curves and walls of the monuments. This is how it is as long as the prize will exist. But in cycling, insisting on designing flat stages, like the Danish ones of the Giro, where the greatest pitfalls are mostly concentrated in the hairpin bends in the last two-three kilometers is completely senseless. Unless you taste the risk of the massacre. Which promptly happened. In Herning, about twenty runners tumbled with fortunately limited consequences. In Horsens, where the third stage began and ended, drama was risked on the day dedicated to the memory of Wouters Weylandt, the Belgian rider who died last year in the Passo del Bocco descent.
To pay the price in the Volatona, won by the Australian Matthew Goss on the Argentine Haedo and on the American Tyler Farrar, were the two main protagonists of this start Windy tour of Jutland: the pink jersey Taylor Phinney and the world champion Mark Cavendish, thrown to the ground by a pirate maneuver by Matteo Ferrari from Brescia (relegated to last place but the judging panel should have expelled such a character!). The British, rather battered, crossed the finish line with the bike on his shoulder. Phinney was loaded into an ambulance for the first dressings. Although his foot hurts, the American of the Bmc, tonnage of a cuirassier, wanted to present himself at the award ceremony, always in the pink jersey with an advantage of 9" over the second, Thomas (Sky) and 13" over the third, the Dane Rasmussen (Garmin).
In Verona, where the Giro will move over the next twenty-four hours, Phinney hopes not to suffer the consequences of Horsens' terrible tangle in Wednesday's team time trial. “I can't explain – said the American after the first moments of fear – why you take certain risks in the sprint! It was hell. For now I feel ok. Let's see what the doctors say but I think I can continue."
