While Angelo Zomegnan may have sent riders of the 2011 Giro d'Italia up Mount Etna mid-eruption, this isn't the first time riders have been made to deal with ongoing disasters. The 1986 edition of the Peace Race started on May 6, for only the second time in its history venturing into the Soviet Union for a start with a prologue and three stages in and around Kiev. Before the race all but two western teams pulled out of the race along with several key names from other Ostbloc teams, leaving just 64 riders in 11 teams to take part (for comparison, there were 159 starters in 1987). When they arrived they found people checking the streets with Geiger counters and tankers regularly spraying the streets with water, for ten days earlier the Chernobyl disaster had taken place just 100km away, and they were scheduled to go closer than that on the third road stage before flying back to Warsaw.
One of the 64 riders in Kiev was able to juxtapose the surreal feeling of participating in a sporting competition amid an enormous disaster (riders such as Olaf Ludwig have mentioned being able to taste the radiation) with the celebration of the birth of his son, back at home, on the day of the prologue. His son's name was the same as his: Roman Kreuziger.
Elsewhere in the startlists of the race we see, alongside the expected famous names of the Wende-time - Ugrumov, Ludwig, Abdoujaparov, Konyshev, Jaskula, Tonkov and so on - some other familiar names, often westerners from the days when going to get ground into dust on terrible roads by Warsaw Pact riders was part of a rider's essential growing up phase:
Jean-René Bernaudeau (1977)
Chris Boardman (1990)
Udo Bölts (1987)
Erik Breukink (1985)
Marco Chagas (4x Volta a Portugal winner)(1979)
Oleg Chuzhda (father of Oleg Chuzhda)(1983, 1990)
Mario de Clercq (3x CX World Champion)(1990)
Maarten Ducrot (1984)
Jacky Durand (1989)
Laurent Fignon (1981)
Joël Gallopin (father of Tony)(1977)
Todd Gogulski (1987)
Mathieu Hermans (two-time lanterne rouge)(1984)
Miguel Indurain (1984)
Roman Kreuziger (father of Roman Kreuziger)(1984-9)
Marc Madiot (1980)
Eros Poli (1984, 1989)
Massimo Strazzer (winner of the Giro points jersey and Intergiro)(1990)
Adri van der Poel (1982)
Jean-Paul van Poppel (1984)