Cyclist crashes into a stopped motorbike near the finish line of the Giro di Romagna, career at risk for Francesco Galimberti. Centauro fined, investigations underway

«Our first thoughts at this moment go entirely to Francesco Galimberti, hoping that he can heal quickly and return to racing. He had just won the Città di Pontedera and was going through a great moment of form, which is a shame.” The voice of Marco Selleri, director of ExtraGiro, has a tone of bitterness regarding what happened on Sunday 21 April 2024 to the 23-year-old Biesse-Carrera cyclist Francesco Galimberti who collided with a motorbike near the finish line of the Giro di Romagna: «We are constantly in contact with his sporting director Marco Milesi. Unfortunately the boy suffered a fracture of the femur in several places. He is in intensive care in Forlì and will soon be operated on. We still cannot understand how this could have happened, considering the 40 years of experience of the motorcyclist who had on board the cameraman and the technical equipment of the Rodella service in Brescia, in charge of producing the race for RaiSport. 300 meters from the finish line there was a detour for all unauthorized vehicles, you needed a red sticker to go further and that bike didn’t have one. The deviation was marked by a very large sign and by a race official, but he went straight and then made things worse, because instead of passing the finish line and getting a 100 franc fine he thought it best to stop on the left 200 meters away. since arrival. It’s a shame that the group of pursuers came from behind and the Galimberti twins (in addition to the injured man there was also their brother Lorenzo) crashed into the body of the motorbike which contains the technical material.”

While the investigations by the traffic police continue, Raffaele Babini, race director of the 87th Giro di Romagna from Lugo to Castrocaro Terme, who returned after 13 years of stopping, is even more angry about what happened and speaks of the motorcyclist’s “unacceptable behaviour”, which in the meantime the jury has sanctioned by applying the maximum penalty, a fine of 3 thousand euros. But the centaur risks having to face the civil and criminal consequences of the damage caused. The cyclist, in fact, may no longer be able to compete again and the Biesse sporting director, Marco Milesi, launches an appeal: «If anyone in the public had made a video or even taken a photo of the impact, we would like to be able to have the images to have more certainty about what happened. There are two certainties at the moment: the first is that the motorbike shouldn’t have been there, the second is that Francesco is hospitalized in serious conditions at the Pierantoni-Morgagni in Forlì.”

Details in the Corriere Romagna on newsstands