Olympic Champion Grace Brown launches shots at Tre Valli Varesine organizers for holding race under heavy rain: "I voluntarily abandoned a race for the first time in my career"

Yesterday's Tre Valli Varesine was meant to be the main event of the day and one of the most important of the week, but extreme rainy conditions instead marked it. The men's race was cancelled already on the request of the riders; but the women's race did finish despite many calling for action.

"Not exactly how I envisaged my final road race at Tre Valli Varesine in torrential rain and flooded roads. Here's a 'nice' photo with my backwards breakaway companion (Brodie May Chapman, ed.) after we tried to speak with the commissaire car about race safety," the Olympic and time-trial World Champion said in an Instagram post. "We achieved nothing other than getting dropped from the peloton in the process. So, even in my last road race, I achieve a first! I voluntarily abandoned a race for the first time in my career. Only 35 tough women battled the conditions to finish, and the men's race after ours was eventually cancelled. Let's hope for better conditions this Sunday in Bretagne!"  

It was an horrific day out on the bike for the women's peloton in Italy, who faced heavy rain conditions all morning around Varese. It proved to be a difficult race, won by Cédrine Kerbaol in the end. The men's race was initially slightly cut, but then the weather worsened and ultimately it was decided that there were no conditions to stay on the road with safety. This, despite the likes of Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel being on the road.

Brown's unsuccessful attempt to convince race organizers to take action is rather worrying however, and is a sentiment mirrored by Chapman who also had a similar story: "You could see that many riders felt the lack of visibility and holes filled with water weren’t safe. We tried to alert the Commissaires but were ignored".