Miguel Ángel López abandons Giro d’Italia 2022
Miguel Ángel López abandons Giro d'Italia 2022
Miguel Ángel López has abandoned the Giro d’Italia on stage four as the peloton heads towards Mount Etna.
The Colombian was suffering from an injury to his left hip, his Astana Qazaqstan team has said, and therefore climbed off on the first stage since the Grand Tour arrived in Italy.
“Unfortunately, Miguel Ángel López had to abandon shortly after Stage 4 started,” Astana said in a statement. “During the last few days he was suffering from left hip injury. We will communicate more info as soon as we get more from the team doctor.”
On stage four, López was brought down in a crash in the opening kilometres, which won’t have helped his injury problems. The fall also involved Simon Yates, who sits second overall in the general classification. The Brit could be seen receiving spray at the medical car and also later dropping back to his team vehicle, his condition being monitored closely ahead of today’s first mountain test.
Another crash occurred just a few kilometres later when a motorbike clipped some road furniture and brought down a number of riders.
López had finished safely in the pack on stages 1 and 3 in Hungary, while on the stage two time trial he limited his losses, losing 42 seconds to stage winner Yates but posting a time not too far off his fellow GC rivals.
It’s a familiar dose of bad luck for the 28-year-old in Sicily, having crashed out of his previous Giro in 2020 on the opening time trial stage on the island.
He has now failed to finish his previous four Grand Tours, abandoning the 2021 Tour de France before the start of stage 19 in order to prepare for the Tokyo Olympic Games, before his infamous fallout at the subsequent Vuelta a España saw him concede a podium place in what was his last race for Movistar.
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