A violent hailstorm in the French Pyrenees forced the abandonment of stage three of the Vuelta a España on Monday, bringing one of cycling's three Grand Tour races to an abrupt and chaotic halt with just 15 kilometres remaining. Riders sought shelter wherever they could find it as hailstones blanketed the mountain roads, leaving the finish in Font-Romeu — a high-altitude village in the eastern Pyrenees, famed for its 300 sunny days a year and popular with elite athletes for altitude training camps — completely unreached.

The stage, which ran 174km from the coastal town of Gruissan to Font-Romeu, had begun in warm sunshine with little warning of what was to come. A five-man breakaway group, including Dutch rider Timo Roosen of Picnic-PostNL, had established a lead on the road, while the race's overall leader, Slovenian world champion Tadej Pogacar of UAE Emirates-XRG, had his team firmly controlling the pace of the main peloton on the long ascent of the Col de Mont-Louis. As the riders neared the summit, the sky darkened rapidly and a heavy downpour of hail and thunder swept in, sending temperatures plummeting.

It was Pogacar himself who effectively stopped the race, riding to the front of the thinned-out peloton and gesturing to his fellow competitors to pull over. Race officials followed shortly after with a formal announcement.