Vingegaard suffered lung damage in major crash

BARCELONA: Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard suffered lung damage during a horrific mass crash in the Tour of the Basque Country race, his team said on Friday.

The injuries pose a question mark over Vingegaard’s hopes of recording a third successive Tour de France triumph this summer, with the race beginning on June 29 in Florence, Italy.

The Danish rider, 27, was taken to hospital ater the crash on Thursday in the fourth stage of the race and initially diagnosed with a broken collarbone and several broken ribs.

However, his team Visma-lease a Bike issued an update on Friday morning saying the injuries were far more serious than that.

“Further examination in the hospital revealed that he also suffered a pulmonary contusion and pneumothorax,” they said.

“He is stable and had a good night. He remains in hospital.”

The horror crash occurred with around 35 kilometres to go in the run from Etxarri Aranatz to Legutio.

Other stars were involved in the crash including Remco Evenepoel, who suffered a broken collarbone, and Primoz Roglic, who abandoned the race but did not sustain any fractures.

Vingegaard, who won the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Tour de France, was put into a neck brace and given breathing aid, spending several minutes prone in a safety position before being taken into an ambulance on a stretcher.

“Over the radio we heard that Jonas was involved in a big crash,” said Visma sports director Addy Engels.

“We immediately saw that it didn’t look good when we arrived to him.”

Last week Visma rider Wout van Aert suffered similar injuries in another bad crash at the Around Flanders one-day race.

Roglic, who also fell on Wednesday in stage three but quickly recovered, was leading the overall standings from Evenepoel by seven seconds at the start of racing on Thursday.

With many star names out of the race, Matias Skjelmose is the new general classification leader, four seconds ahead of Juan Ayuso.

Meanwhile, Mikel Landa abandoned the Tour of the Basque Country on Friday ater another crash.

Soudal Quick-step riders Landa and Gil Gelders were forced out of the race during stage five, said the Belgian team a day ater their star Evenepoel broke his collarbone in the horror crash.

“There has been a crash... Both Gil Gelders and Mikel Landa were involved and had to abandon the race,” said Soudal on X, formerly known as Twiter.

Race organisers said there was a “fall near Manaria in which several cyclists were involved,” noting Landa had abandoned Friday’s penultimate stage from Vitoria-gasteiz to Amorebieta-etxano.

Spaniard Landa finished second in the race last year and in 2018, and finished runner-up behind Tadej Pogacar in March in the Tour of Catalonia.

The president of French professional cyclists’ union (UNCP) on Thursday called on the UCI, the world governing body, to take “responsibility” for making the sport a safer place.

Pascal Chanteur said he was “angry” about the recent spate of high speed crashes which have seen three of the world’s top riders land in hospital in the last week.