Eddie Dunbar was unfortunately forced to abandon UAE Tour before yesterday's stage 2 TT after sustaining a fracture in the crash that marred the end of the opening stage into Liwa.
The Team Jayco AlUla rider, and compatriot Ryan Mullen (Bora-hansgrohe), were both among a large number of fallers in the pile-up at high speed down the finishing straight.
It is the second blow for Dunbar this season as he was also forced out of Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (2.Pro) at the start of last month after a crash on the second stage, with the Irish rider explaining he was very unlucky with the manner of the crash in UAE on Monday.
"Coming into the finish I was in a good position, well, I thought I was," Dunbar said of his crash. "Basically the crash happened and I was actually coming to a stop, happy to avoid it. And then I just got hit from behind by another rider going about 50k an hour.
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"That kinda pushed me off the bike, straight over the handlebars. I took all the weight on my right hand side. I ended up with a small fracture in my hand, so that's disappointing, similar to the one last year, a different bone.
"I'm disappointed, obviously. I crashed in Valenciana, now here, it's mentally more difficult that physically at this point."
Dunbar added he would go and be examined by a hand specialist and once he had a prognosis he would re-plan the coming weeks in terms of training and racing.
While many of the riders who fell on stage 1 came down in the initial spill, they blocked the road in places and other riders ploughed into them.
In some cases, such as Dunbar's, even when riders managed to stop and not hit the fallers, they were then hit from behind by riders who were even further back and not as quick to respond to the carnage ahead of them.
