Jonas Vingegaard crashed out of the Tour de France after breaking his collarbone in a crash which resulted in riders landing on spectators.
In a stage 15 won by Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, two-time winner Vingegaard – seen as the only real threat to defending champion and yellow jersey wearer Tadej Pogacar – was tackling a tight right-hand bend off a roundabout when his front wheel slid out, causing him to land on his shoulder.
The concertina effect caused three other riders to catapulte over Vingegaard and on to spectators standing on the outside of the corner, with Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG team-mate Isaac del Toro, of Mexico, landing on a woman with crutches who was seated.
Denmark’s Vingegaard will now have surgery “in the coming days due to the severity of the fracture”, according to a team statement.
Vingegaard’s team-mate Sepp Kuss, of the USA, and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Jai Hindley, of Australia, were also involved, but continued.
The stage was won unexpectedly by Evenepoel of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe after managing to stay with Pogacar, and then power away from Del Toro.
Evenepoel is widely considered the third-best rider in the world for overall ability for his supreme time trial skills, but typically he suffers on steep climbs.
But on the uncategorised final climb of Sunday’s 183.9km stage from Champagnole to Plateau de Solaison, he matched Pogacar for the first time on such parcours.
Evenepoel is favourite to win stage 16 on Tuesday – a 26.1km time trial to Thonon les Bains.
“I’m trembling with the emotion,” said Evenepoel afterwards. “It was hard in the beginning, but I got better and better during the day.
“You have to understand I am racing the best guy ever [Pogacar] and for me it’s a big step forward that I can follow this pace. I always get so many critics saying: ‘You cannot survive steep climbs.’ So it means a lot.”
Pogacar remains in the overall leader’s yellow jersey, five minutes ahead of Evenepoel, who is a further 58 seconds ahead of Del Toro.
Britain’s Tom Pidcock was a contender for victory across much of the stage as he was part of a earlier breakaway group that lasted beyond the category one Col de la Croisette climb, alongside American ‘hipster rider’ Quinn Simmons of Lidl-Trek, who won the day super-combatif award.
France’s young sensation Paul Seixas of Decathlon-CMA CGM fought to keep up with the leaders, but lost his youth classification white jersey after coming home fourth, 52 seconds behind Del Toro.
The King of the Mountains jersey returned to Pogacar after Valentin Paret-Peintre of Soudal-Quick Step finished way down in 79th place.
Denmark’s Mads Pedersen retained the green points jersey.
