No-one was surprised when Ewan Caleb withdrew from the Giro d'Italia the other day. This year's edition of the Giro was his fifth. The Australian Lotto-Soudal rider has finished none of them, preferring to attempt wins or strong finishes in sprint stages--his specialty--before reaching the mountain stages. Also, he and his team feel that this is a good strategy, as it gives him more time to recuperate before the Tour de France, which starts early in July.
But perhaps the strangest withdrawal from the Giro came the day before. Biniam Girmay made history when he emerged victorious in Stage 10, making him the first Black African to win a stage--or wear the overall race leader's jersey (the Giro's Maglia Rosa)--in one of the Grand Tours. Folks like me had high hopes for him but a seemingly-unlikely mishap, wholly unrelated to riding, forced him out of the race.
He was celebrating his win on the podium when he leaned over to pick up a bottle of prosecco from a magnum. At that exact moment, the cork launched itself from the bottle, striking Girmay in his left eye, causing damage to its anterior chamber.
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| Biniam Girmay |
Given how often professional athletes celebrate major victories with the bubbly-fueled reveries, I am surprised (though relieved) that such incidents are not more common. Girmay was injured through no fault of his own, but I imagine many athletes who don't know how to properly open a bottle of sparking wine or who are intoxicated with the stuf (or simply euphoria), have just missed suffering an injury like Biniay's.
Race officials have announced that in upcoming celebrations, the bottles will be opened before the riders touch them. I can only hope that Biniay's carrer and life aren't upended by his mishap.
Ewan Caleb, on the other hand, is looking ahead to the Tour de France. But he might not have been talking about his own woes when he referred to this year's Italian Grand Tour as "the Giro from Hell."
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