Team TotalEnergies will continue Le Tour without Daniel Oss, who plowed into fans lined up along the cobbles in Stage 5.
Team TotalEnergies got a scare on Wednesday during Stage 5 of this year’s Tour de France — but not as big as team rider Daniel Oss did.
As Oss whipped over the cobblestones between Lille and Arenberg, France, fans lined up to watch. Then, the Italian cyclist crashed into them at full tilt.
Footage shows Oss losing his balance after clipping one fan before colliding with another, who appears to be leaning out to film the race on a phone.
Sector 3 chute spectateurs @TeamTotalEnrg @Daniel87Oss pic.twitter.com/dkExu8NNwl
— Victor Loy (@LoyVictor) July 6, 2022
Clearly in pain, the 35-year-old got back on his bike and somehow finished the stage. But it would be his last of the 2022 Tour — a team statement later confirmed that he’d suffered a broken neck in the collision, and will now retire from the race.
“[E]xaminations revealed a fracture of a cervical vertebra requiring immobilization for a few weeks,” Team TotalEnergies tweeted on July 6 (auto-translated). The team confirmed Oss’s withdrawal and wished him a good recovery.
Multiple crashes occurred during Stage 5 on the insecure cobblestones, but few resulted in severe consequences. UAE Team Emirates’ Tadej Pogačar and Jumbo-Visma’s Jonas Vinegaard are deadlocked at the top of the Tour standings following Stage 7, with identical times of 3 hours, 58 minutes, 40 seconds. Jumbo-Visma rider Primož Roglič follows in third, 12 seconds behind the pair.
