Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny) was among the riders held up behind a crash during the bunch sprint on stage 13 of the Tour de France, and unable to race for the stage win.
The crash happened when Lotto Dstny's and Arkéa-B&B Hotels' respective lead-out riders collided against the barriers on the left side of the road with roughly 700 metres to go on the run-in to the finish line in Pau.
The official race communique later announced that De Lie's lead-out rider, Maxim Van Gils (Lotto Dstny), was handed a 1500CHF fine and lost 60 UCI points for improper conduct: "hit with the shoulder that endangered other riders."
Several riders, including Amaury Capiot (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Cees Bol (Astana Qazaqstan), Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies), and Axel Zingle (Cofidis) went down in the crash just as the peloton wound up for the final sprint.
Belgian Champion De Lie narrowly avoided crashing, too, but was caught just behind, forced to stop and grab onto the barriers to stop from going down, too.
Video footage of the crash shows Maxim Van Gils (Lotto Dstny) launching his final lead-out for De Lie on the left-hand side of the road, carrying a high speed close to the barriers with 750 metres to go.
At the same moment, Capiot, having completed his lead-out for Arnaud Démare, looked back over his shoulder and eased to the left toward the barriers just as Van Gils came up from behind and squeezed through the narrow gap, and the pair bumped shoulders.
Capiot was the first to crash, and with nowhere else to go, Bol also went down, along with Zingle and Vercher, while De Lie came close to crashing, too, but managed to stop and hold himself up against the barriers.
Capiot, Bol, Vercher, Zingle and De Lie all got up and crossed the finish line. Their respective teams have not yet released medical updates.
Van Gils explained, from his perspective, what happened in the last kilometre in a post-race interview with Sporza. He stated that he felt Capiot was to blame for looking over his shoulder while swinging off after completing his lead-out for Démare.
"Arnaud was a bit far in the last kilometre. I wanted to take him forward on the left, and that went pretty well," Van Gils said.
"Someone from Arkéa-B&B (Amaury Capiot, ed.) dropped down and looked behind him. He hit me, or I hit him, and they fell behind me.
Asked if he perhaps went through a gap that was too narrow, Van Gils said, "There was definitely a gap of half a meter. I'm not a sprinter, so yes."
De Lie expressed his disappointment, saying that Capiot looked to the right and collided with Van Gils on the left.
"It's like always: someone looks back and then it's casino," De Lie said. "You have to look ahead of you, not behind you. Because then you'll have a big crash. I hope everyone is okay, but I could very well not be in the Tour anymore."
More to follow...
