Dennis loses Eneco Tour after crashing out of finale

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Rohan Dennis’ hopes of winning the overall all title at the Eneco Tour came to an abrupt end when he crashed while wearing the leader’s jersey during the finale stage 7 and was forced to abandon the race.

“Rohan Dennis suffered a crash with around 50km to go on the slippery road just after a cobbled section,” said BMC team doctor Dario Spinelli. “He went down on his right side and suffered multiple abrasions to his arm and leg. Apart from the cuts and bruises there does not appear to be any other serious injuries and he should be fine after a couple of days’ rest and recovery. We’ll know more in the next two days when we see how he pulls up.”

Dennis won the stage 2 time trial at the Eneco Tour, which put him into the early race lead. He lost that lead after stage 4 to Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) but quickly gained it back when BMC won the stage 5 team time trial.

Dennis started the finale stage 7 with a 16-second lead over teammate Taylor Phinney and 24 seconds over Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep).

He crashed with 50km to go in the 197km stage from Bornem to Geraardsbergen. He was part of a group of general classification favourites who had just gone off the front of the peloton to chase a nine-rider breakaway.

Dennis got up but looked to be in pain. With the peloton split and lined out, the BMC car struggled to get to their leader and the rest of the race disappeared up the road. Dennis chased for a while but eventually abandoned in pain on the final lap.

“Dennis went down on his right side and was forced to wait a long time for a new bike as the race cars were coming out of a diverted section,” the press release read.

Niki Terpstra (Etixx-QuickStep) won the overall title ahead of Oliver Naesen (IAM Cycling) with Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) in third.