Germany’s Andre Greipel sprinted to victory in a crash-marred stage four of the Tour of Spain on Tuesday.
Greipel was the fastest of only four riders who disputed the victory after a major crash blocked in the bunch 2.5 km from the line in the 225.5-km stage from Venlo in the Netherlands to Liege in Belgium.
Second behind the Columbia-HTC rider was Belgium’s Wouter Weylandt and Germany’s Bert Grabsch was third.
“I was far enough ahead to avoid the crash, but I hope everybody’s okay,” Grabsch told reporters.
“I don’t think the route was specially dangerous, but it was wet and when we went round a roundabout nearly everybody went down,” he said.
All the riders affected by the crash were awarded the same time as the stage winner.
Caught out by the mass pile-up, overall leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland told reporters: “I hit my head, but I’m okay.”
Astana team sports director Sean Yates added: “It was like a scene from Apocalypse Now when our team car got to the crash. There were riders lying everywhere, it was chaos.”
Overall contender Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakhstan required stitches for an injury and Ezequiel Mosquera, who finished fourth in last year’s Tour of Spain, suffered a major cut in his left knee.
“We’ll have to get him an X-ray, but it’s looking pretty serious,” Mosquera’s sports director Alvaro Pino said.
Astana’s US rider Chris Horner was one of the worst affected with a possible multiple wrist fracture.
“He went flat on his face and we’ll have to see if he needs more medical attention,” Yates said. “It’s a shame he’s crashed in nearly every race this year.”
Earlier in the stage, Dane Jakob Fuglsang skidded into a parked truck, breakaway riders Sergey Lagutin of Uzbekistan and Dominik Roels of Germany also crashed, and Xavier Tondo of Spain took a tumble as well.
The Tour of Spain finishes on Sept. 20 in Madrid.
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