Remco Evenepoel crashes due to hole in the road: "Nothing broken"

Remco Evenepoel seemed on track to sprint for the victory in the third stage of the Tour of Catalonia, but a crash without any apparent cause spoiled his chances. In an interview with Cycling Pro Net, the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe rider shed light on what happened.

"I wanted to grab my handlebar from below in preparation for the sprint. Then I hit a hole in the road. I never saw it. It wasn't clearly visible nor marked. That’s how I lost control of the handlebar," said the Belgian, who led alongside Vingegaard after dropping the peloton solo on a section with crosswinds.

Up until the crash in the finale, everything went according to plan, Evenepoel said. "We knew there would be crosswinds at that point. That’s when echelons formed. The team executed perfectly on the descent and the wide roads afterward where we increased the pace. That was exactly how we wanted to do it. There was some hesitation at the front, but I decided to keep riding. The gap kept growing and Jonas was riding up to me."

"Then we pressed on to the finish with hopes of winning. Normally, I would contest the stage victory there, but fate had other plans," said the double Olympic champion, who now has to see the full extent of his injuries. "I have to see how everything reacts. For now, I’m still standing upright. At least nothing is broken," he concluded.

Cooperation with Vingegaard
Sporza also asked Evenepoel after the race about the cooperation with Jonas Vingegaard, which didn’t seem perfect. Evenepoel made several hand gestures to his Danish teammate to urge him to ride (harder) along. "I don’t care much about other people’s tactics. That’s their problem. It was clear who wanted to ride to win and who did not," said the Belgian from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe.