Jonas Vingegaard, Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel were among those caught up in a horror crash on stage four of Itzulia Basque Country on Thursday afternoon.
The trio were involved in the incident with under 40km to go in northern Spain, which occurred on a sweeping right hand bend on a descent; it appeared that riders that slid out hit a concrete drainage ditch. Six riders were reportedly taken to hospital.
Around 12 riders were impacted. Also involved in the crash were Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost), Alexander Cepeda and Natnael Tesfatsion (Lidl-Trek).
The race was neutralised as a result, with all of the event's ambulances involved in attending to the casualties. Visma-Lease a Bike's Vingegaard appeared the worst off of the trio, with the Danish Tour de France winner remaining on the ground for a long time after the crash.
He was later seen on a stretcher being taken into an ambulance in live TV pictures, but was later reported as conscious.
Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) was pictured holding his collarbone but was able to walk away, while Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) was shown on the ground talking to medical staff. Evenepoel appeared able to bunny hop across the drainage ditch, but crashed in the trees, but Roglič, Vingegaard and others were unable to avoid it. Roglič later departed in a Bora team car.
The race was neutralised with 27.9km to go. The climb of Untzilla was taken out of the route, with the stage supposed to continue with 17km to go, but the race was then neutralised again, all the way to the finish. However, the break of six up the road were allowed to contest the stage, but with no time gained or lost.
Visma-Lease a Bike tweeted: "Jonas is on his way to the hospital. An update will follow later." Evenepoel was also confirmed as abandoning the six stage race, while Vine and Quinn were also reported to be heading to hospital.
Visma later followed up with: "Update: Jonas is conscious and will be examined in the hospital now. Thank you for your messages. More updates later."
EF Education-EasyPost tweeted: "Alexander Cepeda and Sean Quinn were involved in a crash in stage 4 of Tour of Basque Country. Sean Quinn was forced to abandon. Medical evaluation is ongoing. Further updates to come."
"There has been a big crash with Roglič involved," Bora-Hansgrohe said. "Updates to follow as soon as they are available. We hope everyone involved is ok."
"Vine is conscious and talking," UAE Team Emirates said. "We will give an update later after further medical checks."
The week had already seen major withdrawals, with Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Ben Tulett (Visma-Lease a Bike) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) among those heading home early from the Basque Country before stage four.
