Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) tumbled out of his runner-up position overall in the Volta a Catalunya on the mountain stage to Coll de Pal, but not because he didn't have the legs to follow stage winner Jonas Vingegaard but because he never had the chance to try.
Unbeknownst to the television commentators, race officials and, at first, his team, Pidcock had crashed with 30km to go on the descent of the Collada Sobirana and tumbled down into the ravine, he revealed.
Pidcock began the stage in second place overall, 13 seconds down on Dorian Godon (Ineos), but ended stage 5 a full 29 minutes down on Vingegaard, dropping to 74th in the GC standings.
"I was drinking on the descent and misjudged a corner," Pidcock said in a team press release. "I overshot it and went down the ravine. It was like one of these horror crashes you see, but I'm very lucky that I am OK.
"I'll go for a check, but I think I'm OK."
"I am lucky I could talk on the radio. I was far from the road, and nobody knew I was there. I'm happy I could finish the stage."
On his social media channels, Pidcock titled the post "Today I lost a life for sure", writing, "I'm going to self-proclaim as a ninja crasher, 60kph off a mountain and I'm relatively OK."
However, later medical diagnosis was not so optimistic and he subsequently was a DNS on stage 6 on Saturday.
After several similar incidents, including the death of Muriel Furrer during the 2024 UCI Road World Championships in Switzerland, the UCI has been trying to implement mandatory GPS tracking (speed and position).
However, teams at last year's women's Tour de Romandie objected to the sudden imposition of GPS tracking and were disqualified from the race. Since then, the UCI has developed a GPS tracking system with partners Swiss Timing and used it at last year's Worlds in Rwanda.
