Einer Rubio (Movistar) had to quit the Tour de France only a matter of kilometres from the finish line of Alpe d'Huez on stage 19 after crashing into the back of a UAE Team Emirates-XRG car.
Rubio, who had been in the day's breakaway, was in the second-to-last group to be passed by Tadej Pogačar on his way to winning the stage, and looked set to climb to the finish, but was then recorded as a DNF.
Video footage then emerged of Rubio crashing, at fairly high speed as the road levelled out near the top, into the back of a UAE car when it stopped abruptly in front of him.
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With thousands of fans lining the climb, often encroaching on the road, it was difficult for riders and vehicles to navigate the climb even during the race, with Pogačar and others having to bat fans out of the way.
It is not clear from the video footage why exactly the UAE car had to hit the brakes so suddenly, but there were fans on either side of the road and some of them in it, which may have been related to the emergency stop.
Rubio did not have any time to stop or swerve and collided headfirst into the car's rear window, which appeared to smash.
Movistar have not yet updated on Rubio's condition, but he was hurt enough to be unable to finish the final part of the stage.
Cyclingnews can report that he was at the medical truck receiving treatment to his face and then was on his way to hospital in Grenoble.
Decathlon CMA CGM DS Luke Rowe also said he had seen the incident.
"It was ugly out there," he said to TNT Sports. "Remco got blocked and struggled to move at one point, and I saw a Movistar rider at the side of the road, tangled up in a crash, covered in blood. So it was, honestly, it was really on the limit."
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