Thursday evening's time trial at the Brixia Tour in northern Italy was cancelled for safety reasons.
Evening time trial is neutralised in Brescia
Thursday evening's time trial at the Brixia Tour in northern Italy was cancelled following safety concerns.
Team Sky Sports Director Nicolas Portal explained what happened on the second part of the day’s double header, which had supposed to be a 10.4km time trial blast around the streets of Brescia.
He said: "Even in the morning’s stage there were cars crossing the road, trucks as well, it was incredible.
"We then went on to the TT which was a 10k route in the city. There were a lot of tricky corners anyway and plenty of cobbles but you'd expect that so we got under way and I was following our first rider Davide Appollonio. Something like 90% of the route seemed to be open - scooters were on the road and we had a normal car just behind us. The public were crossing the road and it seemed to be very, very dangerous for everyone.
"Straight after that I went to speak with the commissaries and said it's just not possible to do this. My absolute priority is to take care of my riders - but it was also unsafe for the public walking around the city.
"It was exactly the same for all the riders of the other teams who went out early.
"That was accepted and the solution was that we should just do the parcours but as a ‘promenade’ or exhibition, with the times not counting. Even that wasn't ideal but we were very careful and got through.
"It was a very strange day but we'll now start again tomorrow."
Briefly looking back at what did happen on the early stage, the Colle S. Zeno climb on the run in to Brescia contributed to making the stage more selective than would appear from its profile.
The stage belonged to Geox-TMC who took a one-two from the bunch finish, Italian youngster Fabio Felline out-sprinting compatriot Daniele Colli in a group that contained most of the race’s elite favourites.
It saw overnight leader Marco Frapporti (Colnago-CSF) immediately dislodged as his breakaway partner on Wednesday Fortunato Baliani (d’Angelo & Antenucci) took over the race lead.
With the rest of his team distanced in a peloton split up for any number of reasons, Team Sky's Morris Possoni took up the mantle of team leader in the race he claimed second in last season, moving into 12th overall, 2:11 behind.
