'Everyone just dived for cover': Fisher-Black on the hailstorm that stopped the Vuelta

Finn Fisher-Black said the hailstorm that ended stage 3 of the Vuelta a España arrived with almost no warning, on a day that had begun in 35-degree heat with crosswinds.

The stage to Font Romeu was cancelled on the Col de Mont-Louis with around 16 kilometres remaining, the first complete Vuelta stage cancellation caused by extreme weather since 1991. No result was declared and no classification changed.

"Literally in about ten minutes it went from sun to hail," Fisher-Black said on the Domestique Hotseat podcast. "These hailstones were so painful."

He thought at first the conditions might work in his favour.

"The only thing I was thinking was, we were going over the top and I was thinking, if I can lock in here, there'll be a lot of guys that their heads have just rolled. No one wants to race in this. So all I've got to do is lock in for the next 20 minutes and then I could be in a much better chance for a stage if there's only 20 guys here," he said. "But then it just got so heavy, and I was also thinking, they've got to stop this soon."

The peloton scattered when the call came.

"As soon as they said on the radio the race has stopped, everyone just dived for cover. People were looking for trees, buildings, anything. And then we saw this hotel and everyone just ran over to it," he said. 

"At first we couldn't get in. I was hugging the wall, and it was like the TV coverage of me just there hiding next to this wall because there was a tiny ledge above me. We were there for like five minutes and then they let us in."

The IGESA Village Club Mont-Louis Les Sorbiers hosted roughly 200 riders, along with staff and the press. Hotel manager Guillaume Villeneuve later described the arrival of Tadej Pogačar and the peloton through his doors as an unforgettable experience for his guests.

Red Bull got more than shelter. Their directors moved quickly.

"Our DSs basically immediately went to the reception and said, "Can we have two rooms please." So we went straight up to the rooms. They were nice rooms, nice little mountain getaway, if anyone's interested," Fisher-Black said. 

"We were there for about an hour and a half. We could all get showered and changed. I think us and UAE were the only ones to get rooms."

Riders and fans left five-star reviews for the hotel in the days afterwards, among them Tobias Halland Johannessen, Will Barta, Julien Bernard and Roland Thalmann. Google has since taken them down.

Fisher-Black thinks they deserved it.

"They were bringing us all hot tea and everything, and towels. They deserve all the five-star reviews for sure," he said. 

"I think a lot of hotels, when you get 200 wet cyclists coming in, the floor was completely covered in water when we left. If you get 200 blokes walking in wet into your hotel, you probably wouldn't love it."