Critical Soudal Quick-Step shares update on crashed Evenepoel: "A finale like that is asking for trouble"

With two kilometers to go, we had already seen quite a bit of chaos on Monday. Much earlier, Jasper Philipsen, the green jersey wearer for Alpecin-Deceuninck, had already crashed during the intermediate sprint and had to abandon the race. The Belgian went down hard on the asphalt after colliding with Bryan Coquard at high speed. The Frenchman from Cofidis reacted quite emotionally after the crash.

In the final, it was time to focus again, as there was a lot of jostling for position at the front with two kilometers to go. The Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe train seemed well-positioned, but it was precisely that train where things went wrong. The team saw sprinter Jordi Meeus crash hard, but so did Evenepoel.

The Belgian finished the stage smiling after his teammate Merlier's victory, although he was visibly clutching his ribs. “The first thing we hear is that Remco is okay,” sports director Klaas Lodewyck reassured the fans after the race, speaking to Het Laatste Nieuws. The Belgian was also critical of the Tour organization. “There is a lot of criticism of the peloton and how they ride, but a finish like that is asking for trouble.”

All's well that ends well, at least for Soudal Quick-Step. The Belgian team won the stage with Merlier after failing to capitalize on the opportunity to take the yellow jersey in stage 1 earlier in this Tour. "The relief is quite big. It was a nice, hard-fought victory. One that was anything but obvious. This means a lot. There was a lot of pressure, and it's great that we were able to finish it off like this,” Lodewyck concludes.