With a victory in the GP Industria & Artigianato behind him, Orica-GreenEdge's Adam Yates was on fine form at Saturday's Clasica San Sebastian, and made the leading quintet that formed on the downhill run-in to the finish, but a crash with just 3.5km to go left him injured and out of contention.
Yates bridged across to eventual race winner Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) together with Bauke Mollema (Belkin) and Mikel Nieve (Sky), and looked set to score the biggest result of his career - a podium at a World Tour event, possibly even a victory.
However, Yates crashed on a bend in the high-speed descent from the Bordako Tontorra, leaving the team without a result.
".. It was game on for Adam Yates and it was a real shame that at 3.5km to go he crashed out," directeur sportif Neal Stephens said. "It wasn't from a lack of trying, we tried everything and unfortunately it wasn't meant to be."
The outcome of the crash could have been much worse: Yates hit a kerb and concrete barrier on the edge of the road, but came away with a gash to his chin that needed stitches, and the fork on his bike was broken in two.
"He will recover and he will bounce back. What he would have done in the finish we will never know. We will have to wait for others years and other races to find that out."
Yates, who turns 22 next week, is in his first year as a professional rider with Orica-GreenEdge, and won a stage and the overall classification at the Presidential Tour of Turkey in May in addition to last week's GP Industria & Artigianato.
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