Lorenzo Finn Confirmed With Broken Wrist After Tour Of The Alps Stage 3 Mass Crash, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Lose Their Top Italian Neo-Pro For The Spring
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have confirmed that Lorenzo Finn sustained a fractured wrist in the mass crash that neutralised the start of stage 3 of the Tour of the Alps, ending the Italian neo-pro's stage-race campaign and removing one of the squad's most promising young climbers from the calendar through to the start of June. Finn had begun the stage sixth overall and second in the youth classification, the cleanest week-one stage-race result he had logged since turning professional.
The crash itself happened just two kilometres into the stage from Latsch/Laces to Arco. With the peloton still tightly bunched on a narrow descent, a touch of wheels brought down upwards of thirty riders in what officials described as one of the worst opening-kilometre incidents on the race in a decade. The race was neutralised for around twenty minutes while medical crews assessed the riders, and by the time the peloton resumed, six riders had been forced to abandon: Howson, Federspiel, Nespoli, Langellotti, Engelhardt and Finn.
Finn, who turns 19 in August, had become one of the most-watched neo-pros on the WorldTour after his strong opening to the season included a podium at the under-23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège espoirs in 2025 and a tenth-overall ride at Itzulia Basque Country in early April. His sixth place after stage 2 of the Tour of the Alps — earned by sticking to the front group on the Val Martello summit finish — had been the breakthrough WorldTour stage-race result that team management had been waiting on through the spring.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's medical staff confirmed late Wednesday evening that the fracture is a clean displacement that will not require surgical intervention. Provisional recovery is being pencilled at four to six weeks, which would in principle allow Finn to return for the Tour de Suisse in mid-June or, more conservatively, the Italian under-23 nationals in late June. The team have not yet committed to a return-to-racing date and are expected to take a final decision after a follow-up scan in the second week of May.
The injury reshapes Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's stage-race calendar in two specific ways. Finn had been pencilled in as a development climbing card alongside Primož Roglič at the Tour de Suisse, with the secondary objective of a top-fifteen overall result and the youth classification. With Finn unavailable, the team will likely promote Giovanni Aleotti into the climbing-domestique role at Suisse, while protecting Roglič through to the Tour de France Grande Départ in Lille on 4 July.
The second consequence runs through to the autumn. Finn had been provisionally selected for the Vuelta a España in August as a free-roaming climbing card and a likely top-three finisher in the maillot blanco classification. The team confirmed that selection remains live, but contingent on Finn rebuilding both bike-handling confidence and full power output through July's altitude block. If recovery slips by even a week, the team's Vuelta squad reshapes around Aleotti and Aleksandr Vlasov.
Finn issued a short statement through the team's media channels late Wednesday: "The crash was nothing I could see coming, and I am sorry to leave the team a rider down at a race I was really enjoying. The recovery starts now — the calendar from June onwards is the only thing I am thinking about." Sports director Enrico Poitschke described the blow as "painful but recoverable" and said the team would build the rest of the spring around protecting Roglič and giving the broader climbing group race rhythm at the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de Pologne.
The crash also added Howson, Langellotti and Engelhardt to the spring injury list, with confirmation expected from each squad over the next 48 hours. The wider point — and one Tour of the Alps organisers will take into the autumn calendar review — is that early-stage crashes on Italian descents have now hit a five-year high. With Marc Hirschi already out from a separate Flèche Wallonne incident, May 2026 has very quickly become a difficult month for the WorldTour's medical departments.