Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Luca Bettini / AFP 17:38 pm, May 07, 2023

The start of the second stage of the Giro d'Italia was disrupted by an unexpected mistake. Following a typo by the organizers, the jersey of best climber was mistakenly awarded to a cyclist. Despite the confusion, the start was finally given a few minutes late.

The second stage of the Giro d'Italia was marked on Sunday by confusion around the blue jersey of the mountain classification which changed shoulders a few minutes before the start, following a mistake by the organizers. While American Brandon McNulty (UAE) had climbed the podium with the blue jersey after the prologue the day before, it was finally the British Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos) who donned the tunic of best climber on Sunday.

Since then, the organizers have realized that they have made a "punch on the bib" to mistakenly award McNulty the lead of the mountain classification, based on the times achieved by the riders in the final hump of the opening time trial.

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Pink jersey for Evenepoel

"I just found out, I have no idea what happened, there was a bit of confusion," McNulty said at the start of the second stage he finally took with the white jersey of best youngster, even though he is older than Remco Evenepoel and Joao Almeida, better ranked than him in the general classification.

But Evenepoel, leading the Giro, logically donned the pink leader's jersey while Almeida, third overall, preferred to wear that of champion of Portugal, as the regulations allow him. Promised to the sprinters, the second stage of the Giro takes the peloton Sunday from Teramo to San Salvo (201 km), along the Adriatic coast.