Jumbo-Visma led the Vuelta a Burgos at full speed toward the sprint finish of stage 2 in Villadiego only to have their sprinter David Dekker crash and bring down a large part of the peloton when he lost control because of an elevated crosswalk, or speed bump, with 500 metres to go.
Not long after, Timo Roosen, Edoardo Affini and Chris Harper crossed the line for a Jumbo-Visma podium sweep but there was little to celebrate as dozens of riders behind were scattered across the road. All but 13 riders were given the same time as the stage winner because the fall was in the last 3km.
Damien Touzé (AG2R Citroën) appeared to be one of the worst off after crashing into the barriers and having them come apart in the impact. He was taken to hospital, reportedly conscious.
Latest Videos From
According to an update from the French team, Touzé suffered head trauma and a concussion due to his crash. Teammate Clément Berthet fractured one of his fingers and needs surgery, so will not start stage 3.
Marc Sarreau - who also was involved in the infamous 2020 Tour de Pologne crash - suffered from light cuts and bruises and will continue in the race.
QuickStep-AlphaVinyl reported that Davide Ballerini suffered abrasions in several places and has a haematoma to his right gluteus, and they will re-evaluate his condition Thursday morning. Meanwhile, Jannik Steimle broke his right collarbone and will not continue to the race. The team confirmed he will travel to Herentals for surgery, and "no timeline has yet been set for his recovery".
Orluis Aular is out with a fracture to his scaphoid bone, as well as his Caja Rural-Seguros RGA teammate David Gonzalez, who suffered a dislocated elbow. According to Bora-Hansgrohe, Jai Hindley and Wilco Kelderman came down in the crash but were only scraped.
Dekker quickly took to social media to explain what happened, writing: "I am OK considering what happened. Seems nothing is broken except my morale but I have a lot of wounds. I did not see the speed bump coming and with that high speed in a downhill section, I lost complete control. I sincerely hope everybody involved is OK and will recover soon."
Affini expressed his anger after getting heat for celebrating the team's victory amid the carnage. "Before everyone start writing bullshit on here, I want to make it clear. I was doing a full leadout effort. I have seen a teammate passing me with 200m to go and I celebrated, yes. I really didn't have idea of the huge carnage behind us. I feel very sorry and sad for everyone involved and I hope no one is badly hurted."
As Cyclingnews reported, having a speed bump in the final kilometre of a UCI ProSeries race is against the UCI's specifications for organisers - rules that were drawn up after a similarly terrible crash in the 2020 Tour de Pologne that nearly killed Fabio Jakobsen. Organisers used the same finish in 2020 without incident and warned of the obstacle in the race technical guide but riders were angry about the speed bump.
Affini appeared to reference the previous incident in the rest of his post, writing: "Dear @UCI_cycling after all that happened already, to allow a finish with a speed bump so high in the last 800m coming from a super high speed section is a disgrace. Unacceptable."
Stage winner Roosen was also contrite and in no mood to celebrate. "No reason to congratulate me. I hope everyone is OK after the huge crash. Wishing a quick recovery for the involved riders. We had no clue of what happened behind us, and that it was a crash of this extent. If we knew, we would never have cheered."
Jumbo-Visma directeur sportif Addy Engels "felt terrible" according to the team's press release. "It was going perfectly for our team. Then, unfortunately, it went badly wrong. David has quite a few abrasions, although he doesn't seem to have broken anything. We may have become one, two and three, but that doesn't give a euphoric feeling in this case."
The sports director saw his riders come across the finish line cheering but knew immediately that this was not intentional.
"Our riders had no idea what had happened behind them. That did sink in afterwards. It's top sport and we ride to win, but we'd rather not win this way."
Touze's teammate Lilian Calmejane also pointed out the inappropriate speed bump, telling French TV: "For once, I think it's bad luck's fault, as well as this speed bump. In a downhill sprint, putting a speed bump at 500m... It's a shame. We know that there are a lot of them in the arrivals in town, but this is really a big crash."
