German champion André Greipel of Lotto Soudal has won Stage 6 of the Giro d'Italia in Castiglione di Pescaia this afternoon, but race leader Alberto Contador could be out after a big crash around 300 metres from the line.
The Tinkoff-Saxo rider, who took over the maglia rosa yesterday, remounted his bike afterwards, but seemed unable to move his left arm when he was presented with the maglia rosa on the podium following the stage, and made no attempt to put it on.
With the crash happening within the final 3 kilometres no-one loses time, but the worry for the Tinkoff-Saxo camp and for Contador's fans will be how serious the injury is, whether he can start tomorrow's stage - at 264km, the longest of the race - and if so how it will affect his racing.
Team officials speaking to Eurosport tried to play down the extent of his injuries, but their concern was obvious and they will anxiously await the results of x-rays and medical examinations that he will undergo this evening.
Tinkoff-Saxo team manager Sandro Feltrin said: "We are assessing the nature of Alberto's injuries with the team doctor. In the meantime, he is being treated with ice as a precaution.
"We will need to reassess his condition in the morning."
One rider defnitely out is Daniele Colli of Nippo-Vini Fantini, who could be seen on TV pictures sitting on the ground with his arm twisted round at an unnatural angle - you might want to skip the picture below if you're susceptible to feeling queasy.
The crash was an unfortunate conclusion to the stage, and seemed to have been caused by a rider colliding with a camera lens - this at a point of the finish area where it would almost certainly be a fan wielding it, rather than a photographer accredited to the race.
Following the short but punchy stages tackled in recent days, today’s from Montecatini Terme was longer at 183km, and while there was plenty of climbing in the middle part of the stage, the final 20km were flat, giving a rare opportunity in this year’s race for the sprinters.
But once the road levelled out, it was crosswinds that threatened to cause problems, leading Contador’s Tinkoff-Saxo team to bring him up to the front and try and keep him out of trouble - in vain, as it turned out - after the day’s break was caught with around 13km remaining.
Also close to the front was Team Sky’s Elia Viviani, winner of Stage 2 in Genoa and wearing the red points jersey, and former world champion Tom Boonen of Ettix-Quick Step, riding the Giro d’Italia for the first time.
But it was Greipel's Lotto-Soudal team that rode strongest in the closing kilometres, the German getting a strong leadout from Greg Henderson to take the third Giro stage of his career ahead of Matteo Pelucchi of IAM Cycling, and Lampre-Merida's Sacha Modolo.
The stage winner said afterwards: "It wasn't easy for me after the hard start to the Giro, but this is what we were here for, to win a stage.
"I have to say thanks to my team. Sander Armée spent all day at the front. We said before the stage that we would have to keep close to the front on the final bends.
"Adam Hansen hit the front with 1.1km to go and really went for it. Then Greg Henderson took over from a long way out, with 600m to go. It's normally too far, but he kept it up, and we are very happy with this win."
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Out of respect for the rider and his friends and family, please remove that image.
The Italian fans are bad? I feel like the Spanish are bad and the Americans are worst of all. The Spaniards are just too crazy about cycling to back the ef off the road, and the Americans are idiots who don't actually care about cycling but want to see themselves on TV, become a YouTube "sensation", and hopefully get a reality TV show deal for looking like a clown.
Really didn't need to see that.
All fans are morons, but the Italians seem worse than the rest. Last year's mountain stages were an affront to pro cycling what with Bongiorno getting pushed off by that idiot and other spectators abusing Wout Poels. Not mention the "d!ckhead" in Genoa!
I said then that it's about time that they put up barriers on the whole length of the major climbs, but it would seem from this case that even that wouldn't stop the idiots.
That's a brutal image really, I know one of the best things about watching cycling in real life is how close you can get but maybe the organisers are going to have to start putting a barrier gap in to stop things like this happening.
That crash image... I needed eye bleach after seeing it on Eurosport... horrible!... GWS Daniele
Looked like another crash caused by d-heads in the crowd.
The rider seemed to hit a telephoto lens, which looked like a 70-200 F4 lens. Its not the biggest lens out there, but it is 700g of metal, and it would have HURT!
I'll just note that the member of public concerned was not a 'photographer', but rather 'clueless guy with camera' - any proper photographer would have told you a wide-angle lens is what you want, not a 70-200, unless you are looking to take a close-up of the riders chain.....
Utter tit.
That crash image was horrific