Irish rider JB Murphy has suffered serious injuries while racing in France, with his incident coming just 48 hours after his EvoPro Racing team mate Seán Nolan rode into a trap set on a trail in Co Meath and suffered multiple broken bones.
Murphy (22) had been selected for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, which get underway this week, but has suffered fractures in the crash during Grand Prix de la ville de Pérenchies (1.2) in France.
He was in the same group as team mate Liam Curley, in the 178km race in Pérenchies, and was trying to move Curley up in the group when the crash occurred.
Murphy moved to his left to try and locate Curley behind him and as he did so another rider moved to his right. They both bumped each other as the group was approaching a traffic island where a crash occurred involving a large number of riders. While Murphy almost avoided the pile-up, he came down hard and fractured five vertabrae.
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The Kildare rider - who was also selected for the upcoming European Track Championships, after taking bronze last year - also suffered a muscle haematoma, which was bleeding when he was admitted to hospital.
He was taken from the crash scene by ambulance and was set to spend last night in hospital under observation. EvoPro Racing told stickybottle the fractures would not require surgery. The team was hopeful Murphy would be able to return to racing within weeks.
However, with the Commonwealth Games, which he was due to ride on the Northern Ireland team, starting this week and the Europeans in just under three weeks, the crash is a major blow for him.
EvoPro Racing added while the team was very disappointed for both Murphy and Nolan, both riders would recover from their injuries and the team was somewhat relieved at that outlook.
Yesterday's race was won solo by Kiwi Laurence Pithie (Equipe Continentale Groupama-FDJ). Irish riders Curley and Cian Keogh both finished for EvoPro Racing, placing 28th and 46th at 2:02 and 2:54 respectively.
