Christophe Laporte crashes out of Ruta del Sol in points jersey

Christophe Laporte’s week at the Ruta del Sol ended in a heap of bodies and broken momentum on Saturday. The Frenchman from Visma-Lease a Bike rider was forced to DNF after a crash on the final stage to Lucena.

He was wearing green jersey and sitting fourth overall at the start of the day. The final stage was going well for Laporte, and had put himself in position to fight for the podium. Laporte made it over the first ascent of the Alto de la Primera Cruz with the favourites, but the race unravelled on the descent.

According to Team Visma-Lease a Bike, a rider ahead of him slipped and collided with Laporte’s front wheel, leaving him with nowhere to go.

Injuries not too bad

“He seems to have been able to get away relatively unscathed,” directeur sportif Marc Reef said. “Someone in front of him slipped and hit Christophe’s front wheel. He had nowhere to go and fell. He immediately indicated that he couldn’t continue, but now at the finish it seems to be not too bad.”

It was a double bummer for Laporte as he was poised to finish strong in the five-day Spanish stage race.

“He was in a strong position, both in the general classification and the points classification,” Reef added. “Unfortunately, that all went away in an instant. It’s a shame we couldn’t defend our chances.”

Behind him, Tom Pidcock attacked on the second ascent to take a solo win, while Axel Zingle sprinted to 10th — but the day belonged to Laporte’s misfortune. It’s just the latest in a string of crashes and illness that has swept the pro peloton–and the season has only begun.

Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen’s Classics campaign may or may not have been derailed by an early crash at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. His countryman Jonas Vingegaard crashed while training and had to skip his debut race, the UAE Tour. Another Dane, Mikkel Bjerg broke some bones in a bizarre crash in Australia when some kangaroos ran into the peloton. Silke Smulders crashed badly in Spain, fracturing vertebrae–and Marlen Reusser was forced to abandon the UAE Tour after a wild crash.