The gaping empty road behind the 12 riders who survived to sprint for the win in today’s Scheldeprijs pro race tells the tale of the huge crash on the home straight.
The clip below shows Irish rider Sam Bennett in 4th place with around 1km remaining.
A little further up the road, an Astana rider leans on Bennett and that movement appears to cause the crash.
Bennett was one of the first victim's of the Astana rider's move, falling hard.
At the time of writing the Irishman, who was in a great position for a top result, had been taken to hospital with Kiwi team mate Shane Archbold.
“Until the crash in the finale we rode a good race and Sam was in a very good position," said Bennett's directeur at Bora-Argon 18 Enrico Poitschke.
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"We don’t want to speculate what would have been possible without the crash. The health of our riders is of importance now.
"We are on the way to the hospital with Sam and Shane to check precisely whether both are OK. Our tactics were clearly focused on Sam and his good position in the finale proves us right.
The first batch of fallers, pictured from above as those behind plough into them.
"Actually, Shane was planned to be his last lead-out man, but he's already fallen early in the race and so we had to change the positions.
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"Zak brought Sam to the right wheels on the last five kilometers and Christoph has taken over from there. He supported Sam very well in the final kilometers. Until then, everything went according to plan.”
Victory went to the new classics king Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) just a few days after his triumph in the Tour of Flanders.
In today’s semi classic he beat Edward Theuns (Topsport) into 2nd place, with Yauheni Hutarovich (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) rounding out the podium.
The 1.HC race is 200km; starting in Antwerp and finishing in Schoten. It involves a finishing circuit of 15km, covered three times, after a 155km loop of the Antwerp province of Belgium.
The speed of the bunch hurtling into the finish today meant when a couple of riders fell, the ripple spread all across the bunch.
A huge number of men hit the deck, with the remainder of the field caught up behind the pile-up or finding their path completely blocked.
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