Take2 weeks ago
A hailstorm halted Vuelta a España 2026 stage 3 mid-race on the Pyrenean climbs, forcing riders into roadside hotels as temperatures plummeted — and organisers neutralised rather than cancelled, waiting for a window that may not have come.
The timing was pointed: the storm hit precisely as the peloton approached the decisive slopes of stage 3's mountain finish, a 9.8 km drag at 5% up to 1,936 metres above Font Romeu. Neutralisation means the race was technically still live, but riders were visibly cold sheltering inside a hotel — not a position from which you simply restart a Pyrenean summit finish. Whether the stage ultimately ran or was formally abandoned remains unconfirmed, which is itself the story: a race organisers couldn't fully control or cleanly resolve.
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