Four people including two children were injured and taken to hospital after a camera motorbike, being ridden as part of the support to the Tour of Poland WorldTour race, crashed into fans on the roadside of yesterday's fifth stage.
Organisers confirmed the incident happened on the final lap and saw two adults and two children "immediately taken to hospital as a precaution", although none of the injuries suffered are thought to be "significant".
"Three have already left the hospital, while the last one will remain under observation overnight," the race said in a statement released on social media.
The motorbike rider and cameraman are both from France and are said to have "many years of experience" riding alongside WorldTour events. They both suffered minor injuries in the crash.
"We wanted to stop the race"
Bahrain Victorious, whose rider Matej Mohorič won the opening stage of the race and is currently leading the overall standings ahead of today's time trial, described the incident as "dreadful" and said the motorbike rider had "careered into supporters at 70km/h", and had "trapped a small girl under the machine".
"We didn't really want to sprint," Mohorič said afterwards. "We wanted to stop. But the last time over the climb it seemed that the race went on so I still had to go for the bonus seconds.
"What happened with the motorbike shook us all; we wanted to stop the race. My heart sank, and I wasn't thinking about the sprint at all, I was thinking about the people that were involved and I just hope everybody is alright."
After the stage, the race's organiser reportedly said the motorbike rider had been trying to get in front of the lead group when the bike's wheels slipped.
Earlier in the week we shared footage on our live blog of a three-car pile-up that happened when one of the drivers in the convoy stopped to swap a rider's bike. When the driver of the Human Powered Health vehicle stopped suddenly the driver of the Vittoria neutral service car and the race's medical car driver then smashed into the rear of eachother
The week-long stage race has been the scene of several serious incidents over the years. In 2019, 22-year-old Bjorg Lambrecht died following a crash during a stage from Chorzow to Zabrze.
A year later and the race was overshadowed by the terrifying downhill sprint crash that saw Fabio Jakobsen fighting for his life and Dylan Groenewegen banned for nine months.
So what you're saying is the "baseline" would move from "lit up like a Christmas tree" to "like a chameleon at a rave" * ... and it would have...
Thank you for asking Aidan, much appreciated....
A sad case, and one with no winners. The driver can thank her lucky stars that the cyclist wasn't more seriously injured and that the court was...
And I liked endura too. Got a nice long sleeve mostly merino long sleeve a little while back, in orange.
No, the Ebay lights have been around for several years, this Lezyne light just appeared.
They shouldn't worry - the second part of the "tariff" refrain is "they can make it in US and they'll do very well".
"At the going down of the sun, it will get in our eyes and cause us to crash into things."
Been living in the area thirty years now and Brixton Cycles (and local riders wearing their famed Rastafarian colours jersey) has been an iconic...
Indeed - but again these are perhaps questions we should keep asking. Even if the immediate answer is "well we are where we are" or "how on earth...