Astana Pro Team rider Enrico Gasparotto hit a truck at high speed on Thursday while training behind a motor scooter in Italy three days ahead of the Amstel Gold Race, where he returns as the 2012 winner.
Gasparotto, who was the Italian national champion in 2005, was training near Lake Como with Astana Pro Team Director Sportif Stefano Zanini when a delivery truck pulled out of a driveway unexpectedly to turn left across the road. Zanini was able to brake his motor scooter and avoid a collision, but Gasparotto could not stop completely and crashed first into the truck and then onto the road.
“It was impossible to brake. We were going 45 maybe 50k on a little bit of a descent, and it was impossible not to crash. I was very, very lucky that there was no real damage. My body is a little bit hurt, and my bike was not so good. I have a little bit of pain right now, but today is Thursday, and I can go to the osteopath tonight and everything should be good by Sunday,” Gasparotto said.
Zanini said he was angry at the driver, but happy that Gasparotto was apparently unhurt.
“The crash happened in the first hour of training, and we stopped to yell at the driver for about 20 minutes. But Gaspa got back on his bike and rode at the same level for the rest of the training session,” Zanini said.
Gasparotto, who won the Amstel Gold Race last year and finished on the podium one week later behind Astana Pro Team colleague Maxim Iglinskiy at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, said he was strongly focused on the Ardennes Classics, and found the crash in the final days of training a nervous distraction to the races, but was more worried that Zanini would physically fight the truck driver.
“For me this is the most important week of the year, and I want to have good races in the Ardennes, so I continued my training session and that was all I could do. I yelled at the driver that this is my job, I don’t go out on the bike just for fun, and he has no idea the sacrifices we make to be professionals. But Zaza is a big man and he was really angry, and I really thought he was going to hit him,” Gasparotto said.
