The Irish U23 team was unlucky today on stage 4 at Tour de l'Avenir when they were caught up in some of the crashes that hit the action, resulting in many of the splits that occurred in the main field.
Liam Curley had the misfortune of coming down twice, breaking his bike in one of the incidents and finishing the 183.9km stage from Provins to Bar-le-Duc on a spare bike.
During Curley's first fall, with about 40km to go, Adam Ward and Kevin McCambridge were also involved, in what was a massive pile-up. And while Ward and McCambridge are set to continue in the race, Curley's condition is more serious.
He went to hospital for checks after his crashes today and while no broken bones were diagnosed, he was left with badly cut up hands and elbows. However, despite those injuries, he plans to start tomorrow's stage and it is hoped he will be able to get through the day and continue in the race.
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The racing so far has been characterised by frequent crashes, and some of them have been very large. One of the victims today was Spain's 18-year-old new star Juan Ayuso. He won the Baby Giro earlier this year, taking three stage wins and winning all of the classifications.
However, he was badly injured today in one of the many crashes and he is out of the race. Yesterday, Norway's Søren Wærenskjold crashed out having won last Friday's prologue and Saturday's road stage and worn the yellow jersey for two days.
Today the stage saw a four-man breakaway go clear, featuring Johan Price-Pejtersen(Denmark), Nurbergen Nurlykhassym (Kazakhstan), Gwen Leclainche (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) and Philéas Hansart (Hauts-de-France Grand-Est).
However, while they built an advantage of almost six minutes at one point, the last of the escapees was mopped up with just over 10km to go. By that point of the race the field had split significantly and the main bunch was whittled right down, with the crashes doing most of that damage.
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The Irish team took a two-pronged approach; riding to ensure general classification hope Ben Healy did not lose time but also trying to look after Dillon Corkery in the hope he could contest the sprint.
While Curley's day turned into a fight to just survive Ward, McCambridge and JB Murphy rode strongly to aid Healy. And though Corkery planned to contest the sprint, he suffered a slow puncture in the finale and had to tackle the finish on a near-flat wheel.
The 22-year-old, who was in the 17-man select group yesterday, persisted and managed 20th in the gallop to the line. He was one of just 54 riders to be credited with the same time as stage winner Ethan Vernon of Great Britain.
While Healy was also in the reduced peloton, he was unfortunately on the wrong side of a small split in the field, which emerged in the sprint. As a result, he was in the second half of the bunch, which lost 10 seconds, and he placed 62nd on the stage.
That time loss saw him lose two placings in the general classification; the Irish road race champion dropping from 8th to 10th, now 1:42 down on race leader Mick van Dijke of the Netherlands.
Today Murphy finished in a group just off the back of the main bunch, placing 83rd at 1:03. Curley and McCambridge, both paying for being caught up in the crashes, were 110th and 111th, in a small group at 3:33 while Adam Ward finished just four seconds behind them.
Tomorrow the riders have 150.7km to race, from Tomblaine to Bar-sur-Aube. And while they will not take in any high mountains, the course is up and down all the way, with three cat 3 climbs and two cat 4 ascents.
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