Addy Engels must have spent most of the countdown to the Giro d’Italia phoning up his riders and asking them to change their plans for May. A combination of COVID-19 and crashes meant that Jumbo-Visma had to substitute no fewer than four of their line-up for the corsa rosa in the four days before the race started.
“I never experienced it myself and to be honest, I never experienced it with any other team, as far as I can remember,” said Engels, a sports director for Jumbo-Visma, in Teramo on Sunday morning. “That was a novelty for me, and one I hope I never have to repeat. But there’s no guarantee. Many people might say we’ve already had our portion of bad luck. Statistically, yes, but there’s no guarantee.”
