UAE's misery continues — another rider goes down, this time in France

UAE Team Emirates-XRG are going through a particularly rough patch. The team from the Emirates were the biggest casualties of the mass crash in stage 2 of the Giro d'Italia, where no fewer than three riders were forced to abandon. But their cup was not yet empty on Sunday, when another rider was added to the injury list — this time at the Tro-Bro Léon in France.

The story is by now well known, but briefly: in the second Giro stage, there was a devastating crash on a wet descent. Almost the entire UAE squad went down, and after the immediate abandonments of Marc Soler and Jay Vine, GC leader Adam Yates — who had stepped up to replace an out-of-form Joao Almeida — was also forced to leave the race with a concussion.

That left the team reduced to five riders for the remainder of the Giro, without their leader. The task on Sunday, in stage 3 — the final Bulgarian stage — was simply to keep everyone upright. That they managed: all five UAE riders reached the finish safely. But elsewhere, there was yet more bad news to absorb.

The blow came at the Tro-Bro Léon, won by Filippo Fiorelli in Brittany. Filippo Baroncini crashed during the race and did not make it to the finish. Afterwards, the team issued an update from medical director Adrian Rotunno — and it confirmed that UAE's troubles are not over.

"Unfortunately Filippo Baroncini was involved in a crash at Tro-Bro Léon and has reportedly sustained an injury to his left collarbone/acromioclavicular joint. He will undergo a surgical assessment in Brussels tomorrow, after which he will travel home for rehabilitation and recovery under the supervision of the medical team."

This is another painful blow for Baroncini, who has already suffered more than his fair share of bad luck in recent years. Last August, the Italian crashed heavily at the Tour of Poland, slamming into a wall on a fast descent and sustaining severe facial injuries, a fractured cervical vertebra and a broken collarbone.

He was placed in a medically induced coma and underwent eleven hours of facial surgery, only waking after two weeks. A long rehabilitation followed — and he only made his return to racing in March of this year.