'An ambulance ran me over from behind' - Bashed-up Bob Jungels reveals cause of crash
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Updated 13/09/2020 at 19:38 GMT
Bob Jungels was involved in plenty of action on Stage 15 at the Tour de France, taking out Sergio Higuita before crashing himself after being struck by an ambulance.
Bob Jungels (re.) - Tour de France 2020
Image credit: Getty Images
Bob Jungels has revealed that he was hit by an ambulance during Stage 15 of the Tour de France.
The incident came midway through the stage in a valley between climbs, with the vehicle attempting to overtake the riders on a wider stretch of road.
Jungels' crash wasn't caught on television broadcast, but he confirmed it in an interview after the stage, saying "yeah... an ambulance ran me over from behind". A fan did manage to film the incident from the roadside:
The incident came only shortly after Jungels himself had taken out a rider, swerving across the line of Sergio Higuita and taking out the EF Pro Cycling man's front wheel.
The Colombian went down hard in the crash. And a clearly shaken Higuita then reportedly crashed again, with Dan Lloyd explaining on commentary:
“We understand from reports on French television that when he was trying to get back to the peloton he then crashed in the race convoy, so a double whammy.”
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'Woah, Higuita is down!' Jungels accidentally wipes out Higuita in heavy crash
Footage then saw a crying Higuita being spoken to by his team director and race medics, before being helped into the medical van as he abandoned the race.
And Higuita's team manager Jonthan Vaughters subsequently confirmed the injuries:
To update everyone: Sergio is fine. Broken hand/or finger(s). X-rays will reveal the exact nature of injury. No head injury. Second crash was due to not being able to grab brakes properly. Very sad to see him leave like this, however, the important part is he’s ok.
Although concussion was not the reason for his withdrawal, Higuita did appear to hit his head hard in the crash.
The incident came just days after Romain Bardet was involved in a heavy crash and rode the rest of the stage before subsequently being diagnosed with concussion and withdrawn from the race.
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Higuita in tears as he abandons after crashing twice
Higuita was later seen being spoken to by the medics in a concussion test, and the Eurosport commentators believe that the extra caution was inevitable and correct in response to Bardet's incident.
“There’s been a bit of a wake-up call for protocols and procedures following Romain Bardet’s concussion,” said Carlton Kirby.
And Lloyd added: "That’s going to be at the forefront of the medics’ minds at the moment given what happened the other day and the scrutiny they are now under.
“Everybody is talking about what the right protocol should be and rider safety and health coming first. They would have been monitoring him even more closely than they would normally have done.”
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