A dozen riders including Dylan Groenewegen (Unibet Rose Rockets) and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech) crashed and the majority of the peloton were stopped by a large pile-up in the final kilometre of the opening stage of the Giro d'Italia in Nessebar, won by Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep).
The mass crash occurred with just over 600 metres to go on stage 1 in what had already been a tense sprint, with only 10 riders contesting the finish as a pile of riders blocked the road and spilled out onto the pavement.
The crash appeared to be caused when Tord Gudmestad (Decathlon CMA CGM) almost hit the metal feet at the bottom of the barriers on the right hand side of the road, and swerved back into the peloton to avoid them.
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Gudmestad didn't crash himself, and led out Tobias Lund Andresen for second on the stage, but his veering manoeuver into the bunch caused more than 10 riders to crash at high speed in a domino effect.
Groenewegen and Groves were the biggest-name sprinters who went down in the crash. The Australian was not in a rush to start riding again, but was up and walking at the finish, albeit with a bloodied, scraped knee. His team later said that he "seems okay".
Groenewegen appeared to be nursing a hurt wrist when he finished.
Uno-X Mobility's sprinter Erlend Blikra also went down, finishing with a heavily ripped skinsuit, as did Matteo Moschetti (Q36.5-Pinarello).
With the road so narrow in the final kilometre, the remainder of the bunch was all caught behind the crash, but most having to fully stop and wait for the road to clear.
Happening within the final 5km of the stage, none of the riders who crashed or were held up will lose any time on GC on the opening stage, but a number of riders hit the tarmac very hard and the full toll of the crash is not yet clear.
The top GC riders appeared to have avoided the incident, other than being held up by it, with favourite Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) finishing safely.
