A few weeks ago, the ash cloud already prevented some riders to participe in the classics and this time it's the transfer to Italy of the Tour of Italy 2010 which is threatened. Indeed, in the north of Italy, in Spain, Portugal and Switzerland, the airports have again been closed due to a new ash cloud coming from the Eyjafjöll volcano.
Normally the riders would leave with two charter flights from the Ostend airport in Belgium on Monday night at 8PM and at 8.30PM towards the Cuneo Levaldigi airport, right in between Savigliano -start city of the team time trial on Wednesday- and Cuneo, where this stage will finish.
For the time being the organisation still hopes the airport will be open again on Monday night, but if this is not the case they have 8 buses ready to be able to transport 350 people during the rest day. However, that will of course leave its traces and the rest day will in that case not really be a rest day ... The teams are also looking the different options for a transfer by bus, car or train ...
To be continued!
The illustration image for this article is based on a photo taken by FV69 and available under the Creative Commons license. This image is therefore by definition also submitted to the Creative Commons license.
by Thomas Vergouwen
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