Tour of the Basque Country

Roglic defends lead despite horror crash

The Slovenian Primoz Roglic defended his overall lead in the Tour of the Basque Country on Wednesday despite a heavy crash. 

The Bora captain went down heavily with several other pros 40 km before the finish. He suffered several injuries and had to make up two minutes on the peloton, which had been waiting for the leader after some initial hesitation. The stage win after 191 km from Ezpeleta to Altsasu went to Quinten Hermans (Alpecin) in a bunch sprint.

Roglic's lead over Remco Evenepoel dwindled to seven seconds, as the Belgian had won an intermediate sprint in the final stage. Like Roglic, Juan Ayuso and Gregor Mühlberger, who had been fourth overall so far, also crashed, but as this happened within the last three kilometers, it did not lead to a gap.

Felix Gall, who had crashed the day before, finished 83rd in the stage. The Decathlon team captain is still almost five minutes outside the top 100 in the overall classification. Mühlberger, who is a helper for the Movistar team, is 54th with three stages to go.