After sliding across the pavement at 65 km/h in a nasty crash during Sunday’s stage of the Giro d’Italia, Nick Zukowsky was mostly just thankful to still be standing.
“Obviously, pretty banged up. Feel like I got hit by a truck,” the 27-year-old from Sainte-Lucie-des-Laurentides, Que. said Monday. “But yeah, all in all, I’m just so grateful that nothing’s broken.”
Chaotic finish in Milan
The Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team rider was caught up in a nasty late crash sparked when Enrico Zanoncello appeared to headbutt Robert Donaldson during the frantic sprint for the line. Donaldson went down directly in front of Zukowsky, leaving the Canadian with nowhere to go.
“At the moment that I was kind of coming past this Jayco guy that got headbutt by the other Italian rider, yeah, he went down literally a centimetre in front of me,” Zukowsky said. “We were coming so fast. I looked at the file, I was going 65 km/h.”
“One second I was leading out David González, and then I went from moving up to flying and hitting the deck at 65 kph in like a blink of an eye.”
Going down at full speed
Zukowsky had been working for González in a heavily reduced peloton after many of the pure sprinters and GC riders had already been distanced. He said the team felt there was a real opportunity to fight for a strong placing.
“With about 1 km to go, I kind of made my move with him on my wheel. So we shot up the right side of the bunch,” he said.
Instead, the Canadian was sent sliding down the road.
“I was really, really banged up and quite hurt,” he said. “I didn’t know the extent of my injuries because I got one flying so fast and slid for what felt like forever on the pavement.”
Zukowsky was taken to hospital for scans afterward, but escaped serious injury.
“Luckily, nothing was broken, so I’m all clear,” he said. “I went for a ride today, feeling pretty okay considering everything. I think I was really lucky because it could have been so much worse.”
Looking ahead to Week 3
Despite the crash, Zukowsky said he still hopes to make it through the final week of the Giro.
“I’m hoping I can deal with the pain and just use my toughness and strength to overcome this little crash,” he said. “Hopefully we get a good final week to finish off the race strong.”
Before the crash, Zukowsky had been active during the Giro’s mountainous queen stage, joining an early breakaway alongside teammates as Q36.5 tried to move David de la Cruz…
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