It's the Giro I feel most sorry for. It's all very well being widely admired and placed on a pedestal by the cognoscenti. But what is the point in all these words of praise if the world's greatest riders consistently treat you as second best?
The self-styled "hardest race in the most beautiful country" has a unique set of problems. Some of these come with its place in the calendar, and are simply logistical, medical and meteorological. I write this column a couple of days after it was announced that the Stelvio pass, one of the hallmark mountains of this edition, was to be scrapped because of the metres of snow that still blocked the passage of the race after a prolonged cold spring. And even in the very pleasant weather that has predominated for the first half of the Giro, a respiratory virus appears to be circulating through the bunch, claiming Cian Uijtdebroecks, the maglia bianca, yesterday, and doubtless more before we get to Rome. One year it's Covid, the next it's something else. For whatever reason, at this time of year there are more infections in circulation in the peloton.
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Air Apparent - Pollution hasn't gone away. It's still there in every lungful, even if we can't see it in the air or on the news. But there are reasons to breathe easier, thanks to pioneering projects using cycling 'citizen scientists'. Rob Ainsley took part in one...
The toxic effects of pollution have been known about for years. 'Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!' sang 1960s satirist Tom Lehrer.Over recent decades, though, pollution has dropped down our list of things to worry about, thanks to ominously capitalised concerns such as Climate Change, AI, Global Conflict, Species Collapse, etc. That doesn't, unfortunately, mean the problem has expired. Air quality often exceeds safe limits, with far-reaching and crippling effects on our health.
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