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The Giro just avoids Italy’s deadly floods – but cycling is now feeling impact of climate change

The consequences of extreme weather are increasingly affecting races, and worse may be to come

Yesterday morning, as discussions were being held about whether to shorten the tenth stage of the Giro d’Italia due to the rain and cold temperatures facing the riders on the day’s main climb of the Passo delle Radici in northwest Tuscany, less than 200km away on the other side of the Apennines the city of Cesena, which less than 48 hours earlier had welcomed the finish of stage nine’s time trial, was being hit by deadly flooding.

Much of the city, which lies 10km inland from the Adriatic coast, now lies underwater with the disaster engulfing Emilia-Romagna, plus the neighbouring Marche region to the south, claiming eight lives to date, and causing thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes.

Photos from an Italian Air Force helicopter posted to Twitter by the Ministero della Difesa show the extent of the devastation around Cesena and Forli.

While it may have been a matter of sheer luck that the race had departed the area by the time the floods came, it does highlight how natural disasters and climate change are impacting the sport, and raises questions about how well equipped it is to respond to them.

It’s exactly 12 months ago today that the Giro d’Italia passed through the area of Emilia-Romagna currently hit by flooding, with a stage from Santarcangelo di Romagna near Rimini to Reggio Emilia, after racing had resumed following the first rest day in Pescara in the Marche, racing resuming there on the Tuesday with a stage to Jesi.

Needless to say, had those stages been on the parcours of this year’s race instead of the 2022 edition, they would not have taken place. Equally, had the deluge been a little to the west and fallen on the Tyrrhenian side of the Apennine watershed, it seems inconceivable that yesterday and today’s Giro d’Italia stages would have gone ahead.

That’s not just down to the obvious disruption to the route of the race, but also because of the demands that would be placed on the emergency services, not so much those who accompany the Giro, but the local units that support it as it passes through their territory.

Indeed, it was to enable police, firefighters and medical staff to focus on the disaster recovery operations and helping those in need, as much as damage to the track and circuit facilities, that was cited as a prime factor in the decision announced at lunchtime today to cancel this weekend’s F1 Grand Prix at Imola, near Bologna.

The latest flooding comes just a fortnight after what was described as a “once in a century” downpour in Cesena and neighbouring cities claimed two lives, and little more than seven months since Storm Ana wreaked havoc in Emilia-Romagna and the Marche last September, with 12 people killed – and while that toll renders sport insignificant, the floods also resulted in the cancellation of that weekend’s Memorial Marco Pantani one-day race based around his home city, Cesenatico.

Extreme weather becoming more common – and cycling is not exempt from its effects

The fact is, in recent years extreme weather events, and the natural events they trigger such as landslides, flooding and wildfires, are becoming more common around the world due to climate change – and sport, including cycling, is not immune from their impact.

Just to take a few examples from the past four years, in 2019 a key stage of the Tour de France to Tignes in the High Pyrenees was shortened as a hailstorm led to ice forming on the descent from the Col d’Iseran, with a subsequent landslide rendering the route impassable, the stage timings instead taken at the top of the climb with eventual winner Egan Bernal taking the yellow jersey from Julian Alaphilippe.

At the end of that year, it seemed as though the crucial Poggio climb would be dropped from the following year’s Milan-San Remo due to landslides caused by heavy rainfall – though with the race postponed from March to August due to the COVID-19 pandemic, repairs had been made by the time the race took place.

Bush fires in early January 2020 threatened the Tour Down Under, not for the first time, with the race eventually going ahead as planned as the South Australian government took a ‘business as usual’ approach as the state began its recovery from the disaster, and with organisers and sponsors raising money for victims.  

2020 Tour Down Under peloton rides through bushfire-affected area (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The 2020 Tour Down Under peloton passes a house destroyed by bush fires (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

In July last year, the UCI’s Extreme Weather Protocol was invoked for stage 15 of the Tour de France from Rodez to Carcassonne as temperatures went above 40 degrees Celsius, with firefighters also using hoses to cool the road surface to prevent it from melting, while in March this year, a stage of Paris-Nice was cancelled due to the prospect of “exceptionally violent winds” above 100km/h.

Returning to the Giro d’Italia, in recent years a number of high mountain stages have been shortened or had their routes changed due to the prospect of snow or heavy rain.

Even two of the remaining stages of this year’s race have had to be revised, with the riders now skipping the Great Saint Bernard Pass, the highest point it was due to visit, while fan numbers will be restricted on the penultimate day’s mountain time trial, and barred from some sections of the route altogether, following recent rock falls.

And while the focus in Italy at the moment is on snow, rainfall and flooding, elsewhere in Europe we are witnessing the opposite extreme, with temperatures in Spain in recent weeks in excess of 40 degrees Celsius.

The UCI’s Extreme Weather Protocol

It was the rising occurrence of such widely varying conditions that in 2016 led to the UCI introducing its Extreme Weather Protocol, which among other things provides for changes to rules surrounding taking on food and drink, as well as providing for increased time limits at the finish, with invocation of the protocol undertaken following a meeting involving stakeholders including race organisers and representatives of teams and riders.

Defined in Annex B to the UCI Road Racing Regulations, the protocol defines “the extreme weather conditions that could lead to such a meeting” as including:

Freezing rain
Accumulation of snow on the road
Strong wind
Extreme temperatures
Poor visibility and
Air pollution.

It also applies to “an issue regarding the course or the organisation of the event or stage represents a risk to the riders’ safety,” including, for example, “Failings relating to the safety of the course (surfaces, obstacles, protective measures and barriers, signage, lighting, descents, narrow roads, bridges, etc.).”

Swift action will be needed to respond to effects

While some of those issues – strong winds, snowfall, extreme temperatures and the like – can be forecast with some accuracy ahead of a stage, their consequences, such as flash flooding, or landslides such as those witnessed on the Col d’Iseran during the 2019 Tour de France, can by their very nature happen with no warning and while racing is underway.

We suspect it’s an issue that will increasingly tax both world cycling’s governing body and race organisers in the years ahead – and one that when incidents do inevitably occur, will require a swift, decisive response to ensure the safety of riders, spectators, and all involved in the race.

It’s a feature of bike racing, of course, that once the event is over and the race crew have taken down the barriers, the portable buildings and other infrastructure making up the finish area, life quickly returns to normal in the location concerned – the race moves on at an astonishing pace, and a few hours after the riders have crossed the line, normal traffic has resumed and other than balloons and other decorations outside shops and bars, there’s little sign that the race took place at all.

But for the people of Cesena and nearby towns and cities yesterday and today, the visit of the Giro d’Italia at the weekend must now seem a very distant memory indeed as they start counting the cost to people and property of an extreme weather event that is now becoming far too regular an occurrence.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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69 comments

Avatar
JL77 replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
4 likes

We in the West don't criticise because keeping our eyes shut gives us cheaper products. While we THINK we don't have to worry about polution in the East.

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Kendalred replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
7 likes

Criticising China for what? Their contribution to man-made climate change that you claim doesn't exist?

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Paul J replied to tomascjenkins | 1 year ago
1 like

The helicopters act as relays for the TV camera signals from the motos. With another aircraft at higher altitude acting as a further relay.

That's why when there's bad weather that grounds the choppers, it usually also takes out the moto TV.

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Facts and Commo... | 1 year ago
2 likes

The climate has been changing ever since earth was created and humans have never had anything to do with it.

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chrisonabike replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
14 likes

People have been confidently stating things ever since the internet was created and facts and common sense have never rarely had anything to do with it.

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CyclingInGawler replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
12 likes

Hmmmmm.....so the first part of your sentence is (probably) 100% correct, so well done. Unfortunately the second part is only around 99.93% correct, and sadly it's the last 200 years that matter, rather than the previous 300,000. So, good effort, but no cigar.

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ktache replied to CyclingInGawler | 1 year ago
3 likes

Nice!

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BalladOfStruth replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
11 likes

A climate-denying lunatic - unrelated to cycling - brought here by Google, or a new persona for one of the returning regulars? Only time will tell...

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Facts and Commo... replied to BalladOfStruth | 1 year ago
1 like

I in fact ride my bike 10hrs a week, I wasn't brought here from Google and I don't deny that climates change. What I am saying is there is no evidence that humans affect the climate.

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BalladOfStruth replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
5 likes

The second one it is then...

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Facts and Commo... replied to BalladOfStruth | 1 year ago
1 like

No to be honest, I never have been a commenter on here before. Just felt the need to voice my opinion when I saw this article. We live in a world where everyone has the democratic right to freedom of speech.

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NOtotheEU replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
6 likes
Facts and Common sense wrote:

We live in a world where everyone has the democratic right to freedom of speech.

I don't know what planet you live on but it sounds good. Here on Earth about 15% of us have it (according to a study I just Googled).

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Facts and Commo... replied to NOtotheEU | 1 year ago
0 likes

Sorry you are right there. I should have said the western world. I feel for people in countries like China, Nth Korea and Russia.

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chrisonabike replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
3 likes

You can add a lot to that list. On the other hand the regimes in the places you mentioned are indeed popular with some there. Perhaps for the inhabitants it never got good enough for long enough that people could expect more than "stability" (valued very highly apparently)?

As for freedom, Voltaire's quote is still a good one, although perhaps he forgot to add "... but if you persist in saying things which are factually incorrect people are going to think you're a fool. They laughed at Galileo - but they also laughed at David Icke".

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Hirsute replied to BalladOfStruth | 1 year ago
4 likes

They didn't waste any time.
Another 2 to add to the ignore list.

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Owd Big 'Ead replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
6 likes

No evidence that humans affect climate change?

Apart from the masses of peer reviews evidence that has been accumulated over the last 50 years?

Just because the likes of Nigel Farage want to spout bollocks on things they know nothing about doesn't mean their opinion counts for anything.

Sadly, far too many people, including you cling to this delusional nonsense as an excuse to carry on doing absolutely nothing.

When it all goes tits up, which it will within the next couple of decades, don't say you weren't warned.

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plunt replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
1 like

According to the data, there is no climate crisis. However theoretical models can be made to point to one. (But in theory only)

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hawkinspeter replied to plunt | 1 year ago
4 likes
plunt wrote:

According to the data, there is no climate crisis. However theoretical models can be made to point to one. (But in theory only)

Which data are you referring to? (Probably some YouTube video that seems convincing to idiots)

There's so much evidence for climate change from human activity that you'd have to be some kind of fool to deny it.

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

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hawkinspeter replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
3 likes
Facts and Common sense wrote:

The climate has been changing ever since earth was created and humans have never had anything to do with it.

So how would you explain the drastic changes that have come about since humans started burning loads of wood/coal etc?

https://phys.org/news/2019-09-climate-natural-man-made.html

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brooksby replied to hawkinspeter | 1 year ago
3 likes
hawkinspeter wrote:
Facts and Common sense wrote:

The climate has been changing ever since earth was created and humans have never had anything to do with it.

So how would you explain the drastic changes that have come about since humans started burning loads of wood/coal etc?

https://phys.org/news/2019-09-climate-natural-man-made.html

That's the thing, isn't it?  For most of our history, humans didn't have the capability to make huge changes (unless you count almost completely cutting down the Wildwood...) and the human population was not large.

But during the last couple of hundred years, as our engineering and technological prowess has increased - and our population! - then someone would have to be wilfully blind to think that we have not detrimentally impacted the environment and the climate.

We have the technological prowess to destroy it all, but not to fix it.

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chrisonabike replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes
brooksby wrote:

That's the thing, isn't it?  For most of our history, humans didn't have the capability to make huge changes (unless you count almost completely cutting down the Wildwood...) and the human population was not large. ...

We just weren't trying hard enough!  Look at the world-altering pollution caused by the cyanobacteria (it's believed).  If there had been newspapers then (or even tissues...) I'm sure there'd have been a lot of strongly-worded letters from other life forms.

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes
brooksby wrote:

We have the technological prowess to destroy it all, but not to fix it.

The fix is extremely simple - stop burning so much stuff.

However, the attempts to change people's behaviour have been thwarted for decades by the oil/motor industries and their bought politicians. It seems that we'd rather the billionaires keep making more money than we'd like our world to be comfortable for us to live in.

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levestane replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
3 likes
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stomec replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
3 likes
Facts and Common sense wrote:

The climate has been changing ever since earth was created and humans have never had anything to do with it.

hi Nigel! 

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Rezis replied to Facts and Common sense | 1 year ago
3 likes

Climate change happens, but the current rate of climate change post industrial revolution appears to be much higher than is thought to have happened before.

If a warming climate is going to be problematic for our lives why wouldn't we look at ways of slowing this by reducing our CO2 output etc?? Even if it doesn't stop a warming climate from 'natural' causes...

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Rich_cb replied to Rezis | 1 year ago
3 likes

I'm in complete agreement that CO2 linked to human activity is driving climate change but what is interesting is that global temperatures likely reached their lowest point in 2000 years just before the industrial revolution.

Just looking at post IR data therefore exaggerates the changes as the start point was significantly below the average temperature.

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chrisonabike replied to Rich_cb | 1 year ago
1 like
Rich_cb wrote:

I'm in complete agreement that CO2 linked to human activity is driving climate change but what is interesting is that global temperatures likely reached their lowest point in 2000 years just before the industrial revolution. Just looking at post IR data therefore exaggerates the changes as the start point was significantly below the average temperature.

Well, apparently we're enjoying a warm spot within an "ice age" so it's just possible that we were about to go back to the time of wooly mammoths - but our exertions turned that around!  Thus understating the change...

The consensus seems to be that the "little ice age" was mostly due to a combination of different things in different places so the above is quite unlikely though!  Still, I'll keep a pullover handy.

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wycombewheeler replied to Rich_cb | 1 year ago
0 likes
Rich_cb wrote:

I'm in complete agreement that CO2 linked to human activity is driving climate change but what is interesting is that global temperatures likely reached their lowest point in 2000 years just before the industrial revolution. Just looking at post IR data therefore exaggerates the changes as the start point was significantly below the average temperature.

is it just me or does that average line look higher than the pre IR average? Is the average line shifted upwards by post IR rises? Most of the pre 1800 data points are below the average line.

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Rich_cb replied to wycombewheeler | 1 year ago
0 likes

The average line is for 1880-1960.

It's interesting to compare the absolute changes in the 250 years pre and post the lowest point.

Gives some context to the post IR changes.

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Xenophon2 | 1 year ago
2 likes

8 people drowned, thousands homeless.  Stuff the UCI and the Giro.

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