Ladies were forced to keep riding despite rain in Tre Valli Varesine: "They rolled up the window and drove off"

Thanks in part to Tadej Pogacar, who took responsibility and spoke with the organizers on behalf of the riders, the plug was pulled on Tre Valli Varesine. After two laps, the men stopped riding, but earlier that day, in the morning, the women had 'simply' raced. This decision wasn't appreciated by everyone in the peloton.

Though the race was shortened, the women still had to cover 108.7 kilometers. French cyclist Cédrine Kerbaol (CERATIZIT-WNT Pro Cycling) won the Italian one-day race. After the men called it a day, Brodie Chapman spoke out on X with Le Domestique. "As riders, we always want to race," said the Lidl-Trek rider. "However, today in the women’s race multiple riders expressed to myself and amongst eachother the same feelings I am sharing now: safety, and precautions in light of recent events," she referred to the death of 18-year-old Muriel Furrer at the World Championships in Switzerland.

The conditions were concerning enough for the women to start a dialogue with the organizers. "Some riders have spoken with the organizers. We dropped back to the commissaire's car to tell them but they rolled up the window and drove off. It’s possible they didn’t hear me clearly," she said.

Read more below the photo!

Tadej Pogacar stood in front of the peloton: the men’s race was canceled

Brown tried to convince the commissaires: "It achieved nothing"

And so, the peloton continued in the pouring rain. "You could see that many riders felt the lack of visibility and potholes filled with water weren’t safe." The men faced the same issues. After discussing it with the organizers, they managed to halt the race. The women, however, did not succeed. "We tried to alert the commissaires but were ignored. In the end I preferred to say something in the race instead of online. We feel for the organizers of course. And we hope that next year we can compete at full capacity."

Grace Brown rode her final road race in Italy. The world and Olympic time trial champion will still compete in the Chrono des Nations, but her last race with a team around her was, figuratively and literally, a washout. "Even in my last race, I had a first: I voluntarily dropped out for the first time," she remarked cynically in an Instagram post. "Here’s a 'lovely' photo with Brodie Chapman after we tried to speak with the commissaires. It achieved nothing, except we got dropped from the peloton."

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