Alexey Lutsenko has suffered a broken collarbone and will be out of racing action for several weeks after crashing while out training on his TT bike. The Kazakh rider was out with his Astana Qazaqstan team mate Samuele Battistella when they both came down at speed.
Footage of the incident, recorded by Italian rider Battistella, shows the pair riding side by side down a climb in Tenerife. They appear to come together, just after an oncoming driver has passed them without incident, and both crash heavily onto the tarmac.
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The incident occurred on Saturday, with Lutsenko sharing footage of the incident on his social media account on Tuesday evening. confirming he suffered a broken collarbone.
His Astana Qazaqstan team confirmed the incident had occurred in Teide, the popular training location for pro cyclists preparing for Grand Tours given the climbing and altitude.
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"Due to a sudden gust of wind on the descent the rider crashed on his left shoulder," the team said in a statement. "After the crash Alexey has been moved to the local hospital where he was diagnosed with a displaced fracture of the collarbone and the shoulder."
The team added Lutsenko (29), who won Clásica Jaén Paraiso Interior with a long-range solo breakaway last month, was transferred to a hospital in Belgium for surgery.
His crash on a TT bike is the latest such incident to befall pro cyclists training on the open roads on the bikes. Egan Bernal hit the back of a bus in late January while on a training camp in his native Colombia. He suffered life-threatening injuries, while on a TT bike, though he has just returned to the open road on his bike for the first time.
After Bernal's crash his former team mate, and four-time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome suggested TT bikes were so dangerous to train on on the open roads that consideration should be given to banning the practice. Froome himself suffered a near career-ending crash while on a TT recon ride at Critérium du Dauphiné in June, 2019.
