Evenepoel speaks of "shock" after narrowly avoiding crash: "I Think it was Groves who pushed Ballerini"

"I really was next to the cause of the crash," said the world champion. "Everyone saw that there were barriers on the left and the Alpecin-Deceuninck train came through. I think it was Kaden Groves who pushed Davide Ballerini, causing him to hit Cerny's wheel. Josef and I had to make a big maneuver to stay on the bike because we were behind Davide. Eventually, people ended up crashing on the right side, because there was no more space to maneuver. It wasn't a very nice action, it's a shame for something like this to happen during such an easy stage."

When asked by IDLProCycling.com about how he felt on the bike at the time it happened, and especially afterwards, Evenepoel answered honestly: "In the moment, I was mainly happy that I had escaped the crash. You hear the sound of the fall and when you look back, suddenly there's no one behind you. That's quite a shock, but then you have to keep going. There were still three kilometers to go, so we had to stay focused and stay on the bike."

Like for many teams, the safe three-kilometer limit was the actual finish line for Soudal-Quick Step, but the race leader emphasizes that it's not that simple. "We agreed to drop back three kilometers from the finish because then it's up to the sprinters. We don't want to disrupt that sprint, that's a matter of respect between the fast sprinters and the classification riders. But you also have to stay sharp during that final section - you don't want to crash on that last roundabout. Fortunately, none of us were involved in the crash, so we can forget about it and look ahead."

Bram van der Ploeg (Twitter: @BvdPloegg)