Eulálio reacts after crazy Giro day: crash, attack and then a yellow card

The Bahrain Victorious rider was involved in a heavy crash with around 50 kilometres remaining, when he appeared to get caught up while taking a musette in the feed zone. The crash sparked a chain reaction in the peloton, with several riders narrowly avoiding going down. Harthijs de Vries of Unibet Rose Rockets also hit the deck.

Eulálio was quickly back on his bike, but the Portuguese rider looked shaken after landing on his arm. The concern was made greater by the fact it was the same arm he had already injured in his stage 5 crash on the run in to Potenza.

Speaking after the finish, Eulálio admitted he expected to feel the effects more clearly the following day.

“Yeah, the crash is not perfect,” he said in an interview released by the team. “It is always bad. For sure tomorrow I will have more pain. But I think it is nothing special and the team did perfect.”

Bahrain Victorious immediately moved to protect Eulálio’s position in the race. Robert Stannard dropped back from the bunch and helped guide him back to the peloton, with the Portuguese rider regaining contact before the final phase of the stage.

“We came back super calm to the bunch,” Eulálio said. “We returned to the race. In the final I felt my legs, I felt my opportunities.”

That became clear on the Muro di Ca’ del Poggio, the sharp final classified climb of the day, where Eulálio remarkably went on the attack despite his earlier crash. Later, he joined Johannes Kulset of Uno-X Mobility in a late move that briefly put pressure on the sprinters’ teams before the pair were caught shortly before the flamme rouge.

Bahrain Victorious still came close to ending the day with a stage victory, as Eulálio’s teammate Edoardo Zambanini sprinted to second place behind Paul Magnier.

“Our Zamba [Zambanini] did super perfect with second,” Eulálio said. “He just lost to the best sprinter in the race. I think the whole team is happy.”

For Eulálio, however, the eventful day did not end at the finish. Later, it emerged that he had been given a yellow card for using a non-compliant position or point of support on the bicycle, which was judged to represent a danger to the rider or to his competitors.

It was a final twist on a chaotic day for the Portuguese rider, whose Giro has already been remarkable in its own right