Biniam Girmay may have to leave the Giro d’Italia. The Eritrean, who won the stage earlier on Tuesday, has been treated in hospital after he shot the cork of a bottle of prosecco in his own eye on stage.

A spokesperson for Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux reported to RCS Sports that Girmay has been to the hospital for an eye treatment. At the beginning of the evening he returned to his hotel. The Belgian cycling team will make a decision in the course of Wednesday morning about its further participation in the Giro.

“After the ceremony, Girmay could no longer see,” team doctor Piet Daneels of Intermarché-Wanty Gobert told sporza† “We immediately went to Jesi’s hospital, where they found a hemorrhage in his anterior chamber of the eye.”

“Such a bleed is not threatening to the eye itself. After a night’s rest we have to decide whether it can start. We have to be careful. As it looks now, I don’t think there is permanent damage. But we have yet to do that wait and see.”

Girmay made history with stage win

Girmay tried to uncork the prosecco bottle on stage, but it didn’t go well. The cork shot into his left eye with speed. Although he could still laugh with a closed eye, the rider of Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux seemed to be in a lot of trouble.

Just minutes earlier, Girmay had made history by becoming the first black African to win a stage in a Grand Tour. In the sprint he was slightly faster than Mathieu van der Poel, who still finished second.

The eleventh stage of the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday covers 200 flat kilometers from Santarcangelo di Romagna to Reggio Emilia. The peloton starts moving at 12.20 pm.