Double Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) has expressed concern for rival racer Remco Evenepoel after the Belgian crashed at high speed in the closing moments of stage 3 of the Volta a Catalunya.
In a memorably dramatic final hour of racing, Evenepoel took off with some 22 kilometres to go as the peloton stretched out and snapped in echelons on the flatlands of the River Ebro estuary in southern Catalunya - and Vingegaard went with him.
With a lead that never rose above 30 seconds, the two-up break seemed doomed to be extinguished at any point by an Ineos Grenadiers and UAE Team Emirates-led peloton. But through sheer stubbornness and strength, Evenepoel nonetheless managed to keep the flame alive, with some limited support from the Dane.
However, having turned a seemingly inoffensive transition stage into one of the most nailbiting of recent history in the Volta, suddenly as they rode into the finish town of Vila-Seca Evenepoel clipped the edge of a roundabout - and went flying.
Asked what happened afterwards, Vingegaard said simply to Eurosport, "To be honest, I don't know. He just went over the handlebars and I hope he is ok."
"It looked really crazy but I hope he is ok."
Vingegaard opted to wait rather than claim a stage win that would have lacked any real validity given Evenepoel's crash. As he explained, "Obviously, I didn't want to take advantage of a situation like that, I decided to just wait for the bunch."
"So yeah, I hope he can continue tomorrow."
As for how the two-up break happened, Vingegaard admitted it had been a complete surprise. Just as echelons were forming, Evenepoel decided to go on the attack. Vingegaard initially didn't collaborate, much to Evenepoel's annoyance, but then the two formed a very loose alliance that endured all the way into the finish.
"He went and I jumped across to him," Vingegaard said. "I hadn't expected it to happen that way."
"He was very strong on the flat, he is very aero' of course, so I'm happy I could jump across and the two of us work together."
"I think at some points he wasn't happy with me, but that's cycling, that's how it is, we have our tactics."
All this and the race still has all over its major mountain stages ahead, starting with a finish deep in the Pyrenees on Thursday.
But now it remains to be seen what kind of condition one of the main contenders is in now, and if he is uninjured - as seemed to be the case - or whether Evenepoel will be able to challenge Vingegaard in the three summit finishes to come, prior to Sunday's curtain-closer through Montjuic Park on Sunday.
