🎥 Danny van Poppel sees his leader Meeus crash hard, finishes 8th but later gets relegated

With three kilometers to go, Meeus, who was not near Van Poppel, got entangled in the rear wheel of a rider in front of him and went down. He took teammates Primoz Roglic and Laurence Pithie with him, although at first, it seemed that he was the worst affected in the crash. Meeus did make it to the finish, but it is not certain whether he will be able to start on Tuesday.

"It's not normal, but that's the Tour. I think it's really unfortunate that Jordi crashed. But you know more than I do," said Van Poppel, who knows why it was so chaotic. "There was a headwind, and you know that everyone is fresh. Then everyone comes up from behind, and that's very dangerous, but I should recheck the footage."

"I lost Jordi, and I shouted a few times: Jordi, are you there? But he was already on the ground, of course," said Van Poppel. "I just followed and thought: maybe he'll come back. However, it's not always like this. Riding your own sprint is so different because I was already riding in the wind. I followed a little, but that wasn't the plan."

“It's a lot of chaos,” Van Poppel summarizes the day. “You're in tunnel vision, and no one brakes for each other. With the wind in your face, you come from behind, and then everyone thinks: I'll just move to the front. As a sprinter, that's your job, but yeah...”

Van Poppel finished eighth but was relegated after the race because he accidentally hit Davide Ballerini in the final kilometer. The Italian rider from XDS-Astana crashed and took down Arnaud De Lie (Lotto), Paul PenhoëT (Groupama-FDJ), and Emillien Jeanniere (TotalEnergies), among others.