Vingegaard, who had remained motionless for minutes, was transported away on a stretcher in an ambulance with a neck brace following emergency medical treatment. His Visma team later announced that apart from the broken bones, Vingegaard was stable and conscious. As a precaution, he remains in the hospital for observation.
Vingegaard and the previous overall leader Primoz Roglic came off the road with several others in an actually inconspicuous right-hand bend on a descent and hit a concrete gully. Evenepoel avoided this artistically, but then fell and also suffered fractures. According to his Soudal team, he will undergo surgery in his native Belgium on Friday. Like Vingegaard, he will be out for weeks. The injuries represent at least a major setback for both in their preparation for the Tour de France in July.
Numerous stars injured
Fall victims taken to the hospital included Jay Vine (three vertebral fractures without nerve damage) and Steff Cras (lung injury). Roglic was spared serious injuries. The Slovenian, who had already fallen the day before, left the scene of the accident with his thumbs up in a team vehicle, which means the race is over for him too.
Natnael Tesfatsion, who slipped in the curve, may have caused the mass crash 35 km from the finish, and around a dozen other riders fell following him. The two Austrian professionals Felix Gall and Gregor Mühlberger were not involved in the accident.
After the mass fall for the peloton, the fourth stage continued only in a neutral manner. However, a breakaway group of six men battled it out for the remaining 30 km for the day’s victory, which went to Louis Meintjes. The new overall leader is the previously third-placed Dane Mattias Skjelmose.
Wout van Aert, another star of the scene, is out of action for a long time due to injuries sustained in a fall. The Belgian had suffered multiple bone fractures in the one-day race Across Flanders the previous week. Some other well-known professionals have also suffered serious injuries in the past few weeks. And on Sunday, Paris-Roubaix is a race with a particularly high risk of crashes.
This article was updated at 10:12 p.m.
