The Tour of Italy was postponed to an unknown date due to the coronavirus pandemic on Friday. The event which was to take place from 9 to 31 May cannot start from Budapest in Hungary and the date of a possible postponement will not be communicated before 4 April. The Hungarian government had announced earlier today that the start and the two other stages of the cycling race planned for the country would be canceled.
"Hungary will not be able to organize the first three stages of the Giro d'Italia," Mariusz Revesz, delegate for the organization of the tests within the Hungarian government, said on his Facebook page, saying that he had informed his Italian counterparts. "The objective of the two parties is to start the Giro in Hungary later," he wrote.
An already disrupted cycling calendar
The departure from Hungary in May was expected as a first for this country, which has never hosted a major cycling tour. It was to be the 14th start given outside of Italy in the history of the Giro. In 2018, the pink race started from Jerusalem.
After Hungary, the initial route of the Giro 2020 provided for an air transfer to Sicily and then a return to the north of Italy with a scheduled arrival in Milan on May 31. Italy, one of the countries most affected by Covid-19, has placed the entire territory in containment since the beginning of the week. The peninsula has more than 1,000 deaths.
The cycling calendar is upset by the cascade cancellations announced in recent days, especially those of the Italian races which form the backbone of the March program, the Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and especially Milan-Sanremo, the first great classic of the season. This Friday, the organizers of Paris-Nice announced that the race would not come to an end and would stop on Saturday evening.