The Giro From Hell--In More Ways Than One

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.  

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."

A True World Tour?

The Paris-Roubaix race is often called "L'enfer du Nord":  the Hell of the North. This "classic," a long one-day road race, is held early in the Spring and has run through all kinds of weather, from snowstorms to heat waves.  It also includes mud and some of the roughest cobblestone roads in Europe.  Many riders who excelled in other kinds of races avoided Paris-Roubaix, or didn't fare well in it:  Bernard Hinault, arguably the most dominant racer not named Eddy Mercx (and, like Mercx, a five-time Tour de France winner) entered P-R only once.  He won, but vowed never to ride it again, in part because the tendinitis that afflicted his knees was aggravated by the vibration of the cobblestones and the weather

If P-R is the "Hell" of the North, Belgium's Ghent-Wevelgem might be its Purgatory.  The annual race winds through Flandrian towns anc countryside and includes those notorious those notorious  Belgian cobblestones that challenge the best dental work as well as other parts of riders' bodies.

The Paris-Roubaix and Ghent-Wevelgem are, like other classics including  Milan-San Remo,  considered Tour-level (elite) races.  For decades, they were dominated by riders from  northern and western European countries like Belgium, France and Italy.  Since the fall of the Soviet Union, riders from former Bloc countries have made their mark, as they have in the Grand Tours (Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a Espana).  So have cyclists from the Americas, mainly the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.

For a long time, observers believed that the first non-European or American riders to establish a presence in the European racing circuit would come from Japan, which has long had a strong tradition of cycling.  Also, China looked ready to become a cycling powerhouse because they have done so in other sports and it, like Japan, has a long tradition of cycling.

Perhaps they, or some other Asian country, will infiltrate the ranks of Tour-level riders.  But, perhaps not surprisingly, the latest cyclist to interrupt the European hegemony has come from a place that, however quietly, has been turning out other world-class athletes.

Yesterday, Biniam Girmay defeated favorites Christophe Laporte of France and Belgian Dries van Gestel in the latest edition of Ghent-Wevelgem.  The 21-year-old hails from Eritrea, an East African country across the Red Sea from Yemen.  He rode with a mastery and discipline that belied his youth:  Although he mastered the cobblestones, he left enough in the tank for a perfect sprint finish.

Biniam Girmay (l) celebrates his victory.  Photo by Kurt Desplenter, for Agence France- Presse.

Perhaps this is a sign that the World Championship will one day live up to its name--in cycling as well as other sports.