🎥 Cian Uijtdebroeks, riding with a broken ankle, finishes last at the Vuelta a España and can't hold back tears

It has not been Cian Uijtdebroeks' Vuelta a España so far. The Belgian Movistar rider crashed on day two and suffered a hairline fracture in his ankle, he revealed ahead of stage four in his hometown of Andorra. Where he had hoped to contend for the podium, he finished a disheartening last. Afterward, his emotions got the better of him.

Uijtdebroeks had already undergone tests after Stage 2, but due to the fluid in his ankle, those tests didn’t reveal anything. Before the start of Stage 4, he told HLN that further tests had indeed revealed something: a small tear in his ankle.

"Monday was really tough for the first two hours. Walking is hard, but luckily I don't have to walk. We'll see how it goes. Right now, the doctors say I can keep going. It can't really get any worse than this. If anything happens, I'll just have to suffer even more."

During the stage, Uijtdebroeks was one of the first to fall behind, and he ultimately crossed the finish line last. The fact that he is still allowed to remain in the Vuelta is due to the organizers extending the time limit the day before: along with him, Jasha Sütterlin, Hamish McKenzie (Jayco), Arthur Kluckers (Tudor), Marc Brustenga (Kern Pharma), Lindsay De Vylder, Sente Sentjens (Alpecin), and Gianni Moscon (Red Bull) were also lucky.

Uijtdebroeks broke down in tears after crossing the finish line. “I just don’t feel the pain anymore,” he said, sniffling, before his teammates came to his support. His team also offered words of encouragement to the Belgian, as the mood was upbeat following Enric Mas’s strong performance.

"Cian, you have no idea how proud we are of you. You gave it your all to finish this stage, during a very difficult year for you, in which—even when luck wasn't on your side—you showed what you're capable of. You’re a fighter. And we have no doubt that you’ll prove it all over again,” Movistar said in the video.