Remco Evenepoel clutched defeat from the jaws of victory on stage three of the Volta a Catalunya as he crashed in a chaotic finale.
The Belgian Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe rider came down around 500m from the finish line while out front with Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), ahead of the on-rushing peloton, as the pair approached a roundabout.
It was not immediately apparent what caused the crash, which might have been a touch of wheels, but it took all the impetus from the attack, with Vingegaard sitting up as a result.
Evenepoel was checked by his team and the race doctor before remounting to ride on and cross the finish line, seemingly escaping serious injury.
Dorian Godon (Ineos Grenadiers) took his second stage win of the race, sprinting to victory ahead of Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling) and Noah Hobbs (EF Education-EasyPost).
"To be honest I don't know, he just went over the handlebars and I just hope he's ok," Vingegaard said when asked what happened post-race on TNT Sports. "It looked really crazy, and I hope he's ok.
"I didn't want to take advantage of a situation like that so I decided at that moment to just wait for the bunch. I hope he's ok, and he can continue tomorrow."
Evenepoel and Vingegaard had escaped in crosswinds with just under 30km to go on stage three, with the former escaping first, and the latter following. Their advantage went over 25 seconds at times, before coming down below 10 inside the final 5km. However, inside the final kilometre, the pair still had a few seconds advantage, and victory looked to be on the cards. The roundabout crash put paid to that.
"I didn't expect it like this, I expected it more to be a bigger group," Vingegaard continued. "He went, I jumped across to him, and he was very strong on the flat, he's very aero obviously. Very strong at the moment. I'm happy I could jump across and work a bit with him.
Asked about the cooperation between the pair the Dane added: "At some points he wasn't really happy with me, but that's how it is, it's cycling, we have our tactics."
It was Godon's second stage win of the race, and third WorldTour victory of the year for Ineos Grenadiers, who he signed for this season.
"Today I wanted to win again, it was not so hard at the beginning..." the French champion said. "Then it was a lot of stress and tension, then I saw Remco full alone with Vingegaard. All the riders on the team did an amazing job to catch them, Oscar and Bob did a leadout for me, so it was amazing.
"I was fully concentrating on the sprint, that's it," he said of Evenepoel's crash. "For me, we caught them and I went for the win."
Godon remains in the race lead, 11 seconds ahead of Evenepoel, with Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) in third. Vingegaard moved up to fourth overall due to bonus seconds gained.
