Chris Froome was on the Porto Pass, about to answer questions from the media after the stage, when a bolt of lightning struck him in the face. Almost instantly, a deafening thunderclap signaled the arrival of a terrifyingly powerful storm.

Within minutes, the roads were flooded with large hailstones, and most of the people on the summit had to take whatever shelter they could find, including marquees, trees, and, in the case of race leader Primoz Roglic's partner, Laura Clinch, and her young son, this correspondent's car They were forced to flee.

Despite the torrential downpour of hail, the podium ceremony continued until the inflatable arch covering the stage began to collapse as Egan Bernal received his white jersey.

Meanwhile, 3km away, Grupetto was still heading to the finish in apocalyptic conditions. The red polka-dot impact marks left by the hail on the back of Deceuninck-Quickstep's Tim DeClercq were the most impressive of the attacks by the elements.

"For one day, I think I had one of the most famous backs in the world, at least on the Internet. I get red easily, but it was a very good thing," the Belgian rider said at the start of stage 3 in Collenk.

"The last 2km of the stage were pretty hectic. I had never experienced anything like that on a bike before. But my back healed quickly. This morning there are no marks at all. I skipped my back massage last night, but it doesn't hurt at all."

Declercq added that if the storm had come when the riders were further out on the course, the race organization would have had to respond, but this time there was little they could do.

"If the storm had hit 50 km from the finish, I think I would have had to get in my car.

"Yesterday I was fine because it was only 2 km and of course the organization couldn't do anything. It was only that short distance that made it bearable. I looked for shelter but there wasn't any, so I figured the best thing to do was to keep going straight and get on the bus as fast as I could."

Teammate James Knox, who hails from the Lake District in northwest England, often experiences severe weather, but admitted he had never experienced a storm like yesterday's.

"Just being down in the gruppetto for 25 minutes and not being able to enjoy the day wasn't punishment enough, but that storm really made it a miserable day," Knox said.

"We were only a couple of kilometers from the line when the hail came down. The hail was about the size of a marble. I've seen pictures of hail that big, and I've seen pictures of much bigger hail.

Like DeKlerk, Knox did not weather the storm unscathed.

"We all saw Tim's pictures, and I had a red back too. If you look at my helmet you can see that all the polystyrene is stained.

"The question was whether I would survive to the line. There was enough ice on the road that it was actually quite difficult to run. When we got to the line, we didn't know where the buses were and we didn't want to risk going downhill [looking for them], so we made a beeline for the VIP tent right by the finish line. There were about 20 riders from Gruppetto there."

Other riders suffered more serious injuries. Dan Martin, leader of the Israeli Startup Nation, broke his back when he fell. Juan Pedro Lopez of Trek-Segafredo crashed on the final descent and broke his hand.

"He was so determined to help the team as much as he could, and he single handedly drove through that crazy storm. It's a real shame that he won't be able to start today due to injury," said Eva Marisa, Trek Segafredo press.