A cyclist suffered a broken neck following a brutal collision in the Tour de France.
Daniel Oss of Italy was competing in the world-renowned cycling event but ended up picking up a brutal injury in the fifth stage.
The incident happened when Oss and the rest of the cyclists were travelling on the third of 11 cobbled sections going from Lille to Arenberg.
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The 35-year-old, like everyone else, was going at some serious pace and a fan was far too close to the course.
And frightening footage doing the rounds shows Oss collide with the spectator at a sickening impact. Oss flew off his bike and was evidently in immediate pain, while the fan was also sent tumbling.
Remarkably, Oss was able to finish the race but after undergoing exams at the hospital, Total Energies, his team, confirmed he sustained a "fracture of a cervical vertebra” and will be sidelined for a few weeks.
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Oss will therefore be unable to participate in the remainder of the Tour de France.
"Additional examinations revealed a fracture of a cervical vertebra requiring immobilisation for a few weeks.
“Daniel Oss is therefore required to leave the Tour de France. The whole team wishes you a good recovery Daniel.”
Also on the cobbled stage, Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic suffered a nasty dislocation and ended up popping his shoulder back into place.
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He said: "I put the shoulder back in the socket myself. I couldn’t do that on the road, so I sat in the seat of a spectator. It worked there.”
TotalEnergies also had riders Peter Sagan and Anthony Turgis involved in crashes but they were able to finish the race.
Cycling legend Bradley Wiggins, who won the Tour de France and Olympic Gold in the same year, was critical of the cobbled stage.
“As much of a spectacle as the cobbled stages are to the viewers and to us we see the carnage it causes and we see the damage it does to people who prepare for this race all year long," he said his Eurosport podcast.
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“And I ask the question: is it a necessity to have one stage like this in the first week with everything else that we have that is so specific and so much for a specialist that, I mean yes we could argue that Tadej [Pogacar] comes through it and the best all-around riders come through it but there is a lot of luck involved isn’t there?”
Topics: Cycling, Tour De France