The massive crash on today’s stage of the Giro d’Italia seemed to involve all teams and some more than others. Katusha and Astana were some of the most unfortunate. According to Paolo Tiralongo at least 5 riders of the team went down on the stage.

“Almost everybody crashed – Scarponi, Aru, Gasparotto, me – Brajkovic had to quit the race and go to the hospital, he probably broke his elbow,” he said to the Astana webpage.

With wet and slippery roads in the final 10km of a long mostly flat day a massive crash at a traffic rotunda quickly changed the race.

“It wasn’t just Astana – a lot of other teams were at the front to start the climb – when you see a colleague on the ground and not getting up it’s not good,” he continued.

Only Aru was able to recover quickly, and now he is the only Astana rider in the Top-10 as Scarponi lost nearly two minutes.

Brajkovic tumbled over the front of his bike at high speed and landed in hard dirt at the left side of the road – he withdrew from the race and was taken by ambulance to a local hospital. Tiralongo slid heavily to the ground and was briefly trapped under a pile of riders and bikes.