Vuelta a Espana: Investigation into crash-causing bollard continues

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The Vuelta a Espana organisation has said that its investigation into the unmarked bollard which caused Stephen Kruijswijk to crash out injured close to the finish of stage 5 is ongoing, but that as yet it has not reached any definitive conclusions.

"We’re continuing to talk to a lot of people, because we’re still not sure what happened," race director Javier Guillén told the newspaper MARCA in a report published on Friday.

"There’s a theory that the bollard could have been hidden by a lot of people or cars when the race started to go past, then those people moved back and the bollard was exposed," Guillén said.

"The organisation loses out a lot when it comes to incidents like this, but above all it’s the teams and riders who lose out. It’s a very negative day for us because security is one of our big priorities. We will fight to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Guillen said in MARCA.

"We will have to increase the length of the barriers in the last kilometres and above all, find out how, with so many [race] vehicles going past there, none of them saw the bollard."

"I understand that amongst the riders there are feelings of criticism and indignation. What has happened makes me angry because honestly it’s a thing in which we work a lot."

On Thursday Adam Hansen (Lotto-Soudal) told Cyclingnews that the Professional Riders Association (CPA) had, prior to the Kruijswijk crash, already asked the UCI to introduce a new regulation barriers to be extended to three kilometres in all races.

Meanwhile a report in Spanish daily AS on Friday states that there were several unmarked bollards in the street in the finishing city of Lugo, not just one, where Kruiswijk crashed.