Remco Evenepoel (Soudal QuickStep) has won today's first proper uphill finish at La Vuelta, and taken the race lead, but then immediately crashed into a woman just beyond the finish line.
There seemed to be confusion around where the riders were supposed to go immediately on crossing the line. Evenepoel was carrying significant speed and unfortunately hit a woman in a large crowd gathered across the road a very short distance after the line.
Evenepoel had cut his head, around his right eyebrow, quite badly, and fell to the ground. Blood visible all over his face by the time he stood up to protest over how packed the finish area was with people.
While the young Belgian rider got back to his feet very quickly after the incident he looked a bit wobbly on his feet and one hopes he is not ruled out the concussion protocol. The woman involved in the incident also seemed to be able to get to her feet without difficulty, even though Evenepoel was traveling at quite a bit of speed.
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In his post-stage interview - after his win into Arinsal, with a powerful sprint from the favourites' group - Evenepoel was clearly annoyed, but still said he would enjoy his stage win.
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"It's nice, but again some things of safety... it was only 50 metres after the finish line (and) it's already the third day in a row, it's a bit breaking my balls now," he said, a reference to the stage 1 TTT finishing in the dark and stage 2 being neutralised, from a GC perspective, 9km from the finish line.
However, he said his team played the "perfect tactics" today as it was "patient and waited" for the breakaway men to be caught on the final climb before he sprinted in from the front group to win.
"I felt super good on the final climb, with a long but very strong sprint, so I'm super happy with this victory," said, adding once Lennard Kämna (Bora-hansgrohe) and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) were the last of the breakaway caught on the final climb, he was "focused" to try and win the stage, and take time bonuses. "I felt I had a big punch left in my legs so, yeah, very good. It's a very beautiful victory here in Andorra."
