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It was billed as the first explosive test of this Giro d’Italia; a first chance for the big general classification contenders to trade blows on Mount Etna. In the end, the real eruption took place in the neutralised zone, before the race had even got going. A truly disastrous day for Britain’s two Giro hopefuls ended with Geraint Thomas, the pre-race favourite, undergoing X-rays in hospital after clipping a rogue water bottle skidding along the road in the opening 200 metres of stage three. His compatriot and fellow pre-race favourite Simon Yates, meanwhile, lost over two minutes to his General Classification rivals after suffering up the final climb with an as-yet unexplained issue. At least Yates is still in contention. Thomas’s Giro dream is up in smoke after just three days. And once again in the cruellest of fashions. Three years ago, in his first grand tour as a leader, Thomas was brought down in a bizarre crash involving by a police motorbike on stage nine to Blockhaus. This time it was a stray Bahrain-McLaren bidon skidding along the road in the neutralised zone which did for him. There were a few bottles skidding around – road surfaces in southern Italy are notoriously bumpy and although the neutralised zone is meant to be taken slowly, the peloton was going at a fair clip through the town of Enna, with a few bidons bouncing out of their cages – and Thomas was unable to avoid this one.
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