Matteo Jorgensen (Movistar Team) crashed heavily in the dash for the line on stage 2 of the Tour de la Provence, blaming the incident on a roadside spectator.
The 21-year-old American came down with 100 metres to go on the rain-soaked stage, and felt it cost him a shot at a first victory as a professional.
The head-on television images did not capture the moment of impact, but overhead stills later emerged to show a spectator in a red jacket leaning over the barriers and into the road.
Jorgensen, in seventh position, was next to the barriers on the left-hand side of the road, and went down hard, but escaped without injury.
"Sucks to miss out on a real chance at my first pro win like that," Jorgensen wrote on social media, before taking aim at the UCI over the recently-announced bans on certain aerodynamic positions.
"Let’s all refocus on the real safety problems in our sport: Barriers, road furniture; NOT RIDER POSITION."
Jorgensen had previously gone on the attack towards the end of the 170km stage to Manosque, heading off the front for a few kilometres alongside Florian Vermeersch (Lotto Soudal).
He rejoined the bunch and navigated a tricky finale, in which Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Alexandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech) both crashed, but was denied the chance to fight for what would have been his top result since turning pro last year.
The stage was won by Deceuninck-QuickStep's Davide Ballerini, who was victorious on the opening day and takes the leader's jersey into Saturday's decisive stage up Mont Ventoux. Jorgenson was awarded the same time as the rest of the riders in the front group and looks set to continue in the four-day race, which concludes on Sunday.
