The organisers of a series of one-day races in Italy have been criticised after a police motorcyclist rode the wrong way along the race course, colliding with two teammates of Tom Pidcock.
The incident occurred with six laps to go of Tre Valli Varesine, before live TV coverage began. Marcel Camprubí and Tom Gloag, both riding for Pinarello-Q36.5, came down in the collision, with the Brit abandoning the race and requiring stitches in his knee.
Camprubí continued the race but later posted to Instagram a photo of his damaged front fork, writing, “Sad that you have to risk your life to race, one month after a tragic accident,” referencing the death of Finlay Tarling at the Volta a Portugal.”
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Pidcock finished second in the race and said in his post-race interview that the incident made him “want to stop racing myself.
“A police motorbike was going the wrong way down the course and crashed into two of our guys […] I was mad. I had guys all riding in front of me, for me, and then two of them are on the floor. Luckily, Marcel was OK. He could continue. Tom was also OK in the end, but he stopped the race. He had some stitches in the knee. This shouldn’t happen.”
Tre Valli Varesine is a .Pro race – a second-tier event – organised by a non-profit local sports association, the Società Ciclistica Alfredo Binda. However, the police collision is the latest in a string of recent incidents in the Italian autumn classics that build towards the final monument of the men’s racing calendar, Il Lombardia.
At the Giro dell’Emilia on Saturday, a non-race car entered the course on the final technical descent before the finish line, forcing riders to swerve around the car as the driver moved into the verge. The incident occurs seven minutes into the below video.
Then at Coppa Bernocchi the following day, a delivery van driver entered the race course behind the breakaway inside the final 20 kilometres.
Nice to see that safety measures have been improved to prevent external vehicles from entering the convoy after Finlay Tarling’s death.
We got lucky he didn’t have to go in the other direction.
— La Flamme Rouge (@laflammerouge16) October 5, 2026
Following that incident the race organisers, cycling club U.S. Legnanese, said they “are not underestimating” the incident, adding “The fact that there were no consequences does not lessen the attention that what happened deserves.
“For U.S. Legnanese, the safety of athletes, staff and spectators is a concrete priority, to which we dedicate personnel, resources and significant preparation work. The security operation included around 250 people stationed along the route, in addition to Local Police and Carabinieri personnel, two unmarked cars, 16 motorcycles and four Police cars, together with 20 escort motorcycles.
“These figures give an idea of the effort involved, but they do not remove the need to understand how the van managed to access the course despite the warnings and security posts.”
Following Tarling’s death, caused by a head-on collision with a member of the public who drove his van onto the course, criticism has been directed towards the UCI for it’s focus on “ridiculous little issues” at the expense of course safety, whilst the rider’s union President Adam Hansen suggested helmet safety required “a major upgrade“.
At the UCI Road World Championships held in Montreal last week, the sport’s governing body pledged to introduce a variety of safety measures including installing GPS trackers and mandating safer barriers near finish lines. There have also been calls to introduce more circuits to races, although the recent incidents indicate the measure far from guarantees course safety.
