An incredible, dangerous, and inadmissible finale in the opening stage of the 51st Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta, the Portimão - Lagos of 192.2 km. Not so much for Filippo Ganna's splendid victory, but for the peloton that, at the last roundabout, entered the service road launching the sprint among the public and cars while the Ineos rider took advantage of the opportunity to win by breaking away.

It all happened 600 meters from the finish line, when at a roundabout the peloton entered the service road: the images clearly showed that the deviation was not supervised, with only one motorcycle trying to signal the error to the group but to no avail, as the riders - at that moment a Lotto rider was at the front - were already launched for the sprint.

Not only that, the first riders noticed the mistake, but those behind them continued their effort to launch their sprinter, conducting a parallel sprint to Filippo Ganna's, who was among the riders who followed the correct route and, as soon as he realized what had happened, accelerated and went on to win.

THE COMMENT. A very serious incident in a ProSeries category race, therefore just below the WorldTour in value. It is not possible to not supervise a roundabout 600 meters from the finish line: today we were truly a step away from tragedy, there was a team car parked across a sidewalk that the riders avoided by swerving, and if a single person had crossed the road to watch the finish, it would have been a disaster.

And unfortunately, this is not the first incredible episode, because in recent days in Spain we saw images of a race director starting the race by waving a flag from a car window and therefore from a car without the traditional roof, and even signaling deviations and dangers to the riders from the same window, in a very "1960s cycling" style, with all due respect. This without going back to the events of Etoile de Besseges, where nine teams returned home after riders found themselves multiple times pedaling with open traffic.

Obviously, it is the UCI that must take control of the situation: fine, it's great to analyze all safety issues with SafeR, but here we are at the ABC of race organization. And we are facing the blatant inadequacy of organizing societies considered to be of high level. It may be an easy quip, but riders are sanctioned with yellow cards and disqualifications for throwing a water bottle outside the allowed zone or riding on a sidewalk for a few meters: what color should the card be for the Algarve organizers?

to be updated