La Vuelta 2021 cycling - 'That's uncalled for!' - Andrey Zeits 'clipped' in bizarre incident during Stage 6
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Updated 19/08/2021 at 15:04 GMT
"The Alpecin rider just hit him!" said a shocked Blythe. "I think he was obviously trying to move to the front there but didn't move in at the right time and there wasn't room. He just moved in on the BikeExchange rider and just clipped him and they both ended up going down. By the looks of it, another rider as well. With this far to go... that's a bit uncalled for, I think!"
'That's uncalled for!' - Zeits 'clipped' in bizarre incident during Stage 6
There was a strange and unexpected incident midway through Stage 6 of La Vuelta as Andrey Zeits was 'clipped' on an innocuous part of the course.
With a full 51km to go in the stage ahead of the punchy uphill finale on the Mediterranean coast, an Alpecin-Fenix rider leant in to avoid coming off the road and, as a result, barged into BikeExchange rider Zeits - with both hitting the deck at speed.
Carlton Kirby and former rider Adam Blythe were in the Eurosport commentary booth at the time of the incident and the pair could not believe what had happened, particularly given the uneventful passage in which the crash took place.
"Wow, check this out!" exclaimed Kirby as the riders fell to the ground, seemingly from nowhere, to the side of the road.
"I don't know how that happened! They were trying to loop around the crowd, by the looks of things, and that started the wobble. Not nice!"
"The Alpecin rider just hit him!" said a shocked Blythe.
"I think he was obviously trying to move to the front there but didn't move in at the right time and there wasn't room.
"He just moved in on the BikeExchange rider and just clipped him and they both ended up going down. By the looks of it, another rider as well.
"With this far to go... it is stressful, it's obviously stressful and the riders are moving up, but yeah.
That's a bit uncalled for, I think!
As noted by Felix Lowe in Eurosport's live blog, "that will change the whole dynamic of this stage because it was the Australian team who were dictating play. The peloton eased up and it's a flat block on the front, with the gap for the breakaway no doubt destined to grow again as a result."
The incident came a day after an enormous crash floored a large number of riders in shocking fashion on what had been a pretty uneventful and incredibly flat 184.4km Stage 5 between Tarancón and Albacete.
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'Absolutely enormous!' - Huge crash wipes out 'most of the field' at Vuelta
Jasper Philipsen won a reduced sprint finish to take victory while Kenny Elissonde took the red jers but the finish was very much overshadowed by the crash which preceded it.
Among the victims of the massive pile up were Rein Taaramae, who had been wearing the red jersey, Romain Bardet, Mikel Nieve, Kevin Van Melsen, Mads Wurtz and many, many others.
As noted by Kirby at the time, "most of the field" were involved in some way as the huge crowd got swept up in the incident on what was a straight and flat piece of road.
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