The climb to the Col de Porte turned into ordeal for the bulk of the peloton this Thursday at the very end of the second stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné. A few minutes after Primoz Roglic’s victory in the rain ahead of Thibaut Pinot, the riders had to deal with huge hailstorms.
A photo summarizes what the runners had to face. It was posted on arrival by Tim Declercq on his Instagram account. We see the back of the Belgian runner wearing multiple red marks, so many scars from the hailstones that fell on him. “As if the Dauphiné wasn’t difficult enough for the legs like that,” commented the Deceuninck-QuickStep cyclist. Another shot taken a few hours later luckily showed those marks fading away.
“A road that looks like an ice rink”
Declercq is not the only one to have suffered the effects of this grape shot that fell from the sky. The B & B Hotels Vital Concept team posted a photo of the back of Frenchman Maxime Chevalier on its Twitter account after this “attack by a hailstorm platoon”.
“It was complete chaos. The runners, hit by small icy ping-pong balls, ran for shelter, ”the Israel Start-Up Nation team told its Twitter account. “Within seconds the road looked like ice rinks and the cyclists were desperately trying to stay on their bikes or deciding to walk to the finish line. “
For the German Tony Martin, the salute first took the form of an inflatable object handed to him by a spectator. Insufficient to protect oneself from the wrath of the heavens. The German ended up dismounting to take shelter under a tree. He finished more than 33 minutes behind his teammate Primoz Roglic.
