Dorian Godon won stage three of the Tour of Catalonia in a bunch sprint finish as Remco Evenepoel fell in a chaotic race finale on Wednesday.
Double Olympic champion Evenepoel was left bloodied after crashing at the final roundabout while leading a late break on the 159.5 kilometre run from Mont-roig del Camp to Vila-seca.
Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard had followed Evenepoel when he broke with 20km to go, but slowed off as soon as Evenepoel fell.
Lurking a few hundred metres behind, Ineos’s French rider Godon powered into action to claim a second stage here and retain the overall lead.
Evenepoel took his time getting up but lost no time in the overall as his fall happened inside the final kilometre.
British duo Ethan Vernon and Noah Hobbs were second and third respectively.
Visma-Lease a Bike’s Vingegaard is favourite to win the race and should feature strongly in the next three stages in the mountains.
After Evenepoel fell Danish rider Vingegaard eased off and said he did not want to capitalise on his rival’s misfortune.
“He just went over the handlebar and I hope he’s okay, it looked really crazy,” said Vingegaard.
“I hope he’s okay and obviously I didn’t want to take advantage of a situation like that so I decided at that moment to just wait for the bunch.
“I hope he’s okay and he can continue tomorrow.”
Evenepoel, who fell with around 300 metres remaining, without an obvious reason, did not appear to be seriously injured.
“I was concentrating for the sprint,” said Godon, who said he was unaware that Evenepoel crashed.
Australian Jay Vine of UAE Team Emirates abandoned the race after crashing earlier on.
Evenepoel trails Godon by 11 seconds overall, with Briton Tom Pidcock 16 behind the leader and Vingegaard at 18 seconds.
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