Serious injury for Vingegaard, Roglic and Evenepoel also down
Terrible crash during the fourth stage of the Tour of the Basque Country: the group, launched at high speed along the Olaeta descent, takes a hairpin badly and many riders end up off-road. The situation was aggravated by the presence of a concrete channel, about one meter deep, which caused worse consequences for cyclists who left the road.
Vingegaard seems to have reported serious conditions: the Dane was taken away on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance, perhaps also due to a road sign being hit with the upper part of his body. Even Jay Vine , who ended up inside the channel itself, unfortunately seems to be in very poor condition. Also involved in the accident, in a less serious way, were Evenepoel and Roglic who withdrew from the race, even if, in situations like these, sporting results take a back seat. For the Belgian, a probable shoulder and collarbone problem, the Slovenian, who also fell yesterday, seems to have only suffered a bad blow to his knee.
Tesfation , the first rider to fall, probably due to a blown tire, was taken to hospital. Same fate also for Cras and Quinn, of whom however there are no further updates at the moment.
The race was neutralized to allow the fallen runners to be rescued.
About half an hour after the accident, the jury decided to neutralize the stage, except for the six breakaway riders (Thompson, Meintjes, Burgaudeau, Retegi, Lopez and Vacek) who were able to play for the partial victory, with Meintjes taking the lead precedes Thompson and Vacek.