Giro leader Alberto Contador picked himself up after the crash in the video below but his continuing in the race is now in real doubt.
On paper it was a day for the sprinters that should have offered some respite for new race leader Alberto Contador after an action-packed opening five days of the Giro d’Italia.
Instead, the Tinkoff-Saxo man ended the stage by hitting the deck hard on the finishing straight after a rider colliding with a spectator leaning over the barriers wreaked havoc on the race.
The crash occurred as the field charged for the line in the bunch sprint that decided the 183km stage 6 from Montecatini Terme to Castiglione Della Pescaia.
Daniele Colli (Nippo-Vini Fantini) was moving up on the left when he appeared to collide with a long camera lens being held out by a spectator leaning over the crowd control barriers.
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He hit the deck very hard and awkwardly while sprinting flat out.
The ripple his smash caused then whipped across the bunch, taking a number of riders to the ground including Contador.
Contador was reduced to simply holding aloft his leader's jersey on the podium after the stage; the pain in his shoulder too much for him to put it on (Photo: Sirotti)
The Spaniard struggled to his feet and limped over the line with the aid of team mates after a few minutes.
The time loss was of no consequence as the crash occurred inside the final 3km, ensuring he would be given the same time as winner Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal).
However, on the podium Contador was unable to put on the race leader’s jersey, clearly suffering the ill effects of the crash and more specifically a bad shoulder injury.
He later said his shoulder was dislocated in the crash, after which he popped it back in.
And on the podium it popped out again, though he pledged to try to continue in the race.
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"Now I’ve got to try to have a good night’s rest and immobilize my shoulder at all times, and cross my fingers it doesn’t come out again and that I can handle the pain," he said.
Andre Greipel powered to a fantastic win that he would have taken irrespective of the crash just behind the leading clutch of riders on the road (Photo: Sirotti)
Giro director Mauro Vegni said there was little the race organisers could do about such incidents.
"I don’t feel that we have to put the Giro in a cage away from the public,” he said.
“It’s not right that the thousands of people who come out to watch the race are penalised because of the actions of one person.”
However, an examination of the crowd control barriers available would seem to be more pressing now than ever given the number of fans straining for photos, including selfies, by the side of the road.
In some races, barriers that lean away from the road and into the crowd have been used, meaning fans would need to lean very far into the road in order to interfere with the passing riders.
But that option could only ever safeguard those parts of the course that are barriered, normally the last kilometre.
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