Puncture and stop behind a crash in gravel stage fail to faze Cian Uijtdebroeks at Giro d’Italia

NOVARA ITALY MAY 06 Cian Uijtdebroeks of Belgium and Team Visma Lease a Bike White best young jersey prior to the 107th Giro dItalia 2024 Stage 3 a 166km stage from Novara to Fossano 374m UCIWT on May 06 2024 in Novara Italy Photo by Dario BelingheriGetty Images
Cian Uijtdebroeks of Visma-Lease a Bike in the white best young jersey at the 2024 Giro d'Italia (Image credit: Dario Belingheri/Getty Images)

Of all the GC contenders in the Giro d’Italia this year, Cian Uijtdebroeks’ race across the gravel of Tuscany on stage 6 was one of the most eventful. The 21-year-old Belgian had to handle both a puncture and then a stop to his forward progress when he put his foot on the ground due to a crash in front of him on one of the gravel segments.

The second incident was by far the more serious when teammate Atilla Valter went down, thankfully without major consequences, but the Visma-Lease a Bike rider, fourth overall, later earned fulsome praise from his team for not panicking in either circumstance.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.