Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv), who has won three stages of this edition of the Giro Rosa, was involved in a crash with overall leader Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) that prevented her from contesting the stage 7 final sprint in Maddaloni. CCC-Liv confirmed that Vos' injuries include abrasions but no fractures.
“I don’t know exactly what happened,” Vos said. “I was one of the first to crash, the girls in front of me touched wheels and then it was one big domino.”
The crash occurred in the run-in to the line, which the riders passed through once before having completed two laps of the finishing circuit, on a straight just before the town of Maddaloni.
Vos appeared to have come out of the crash relatively unscathed, with ripped kit revealing some scrapes and bruises. Her team confirmed that she had no fractures.
“I’m fine,” Vos said of her condition, “but I hope the other girls are, too.”
Her compatriot Van Vleuten and Australian national champion Amanda Spratt, are currently in hospital where they are undergoing examinations to further assess their injuries. It is suspected that Van Vleuten has an injured left wrist and Spratt an injured collarbone.
Vos was well-positioned going into the finish, finding herself in a select group headed for a reduced bunch sprint after the lone leader, Mariia Novolodskaia (Cogeas-Mettler Look), was caught on the final ascent of the climb.
“There were good riders in the breakaway,” Vos said of the five riders who at one point gained over four minutes on the peloton.
“But it was still a very tough final with the climb and the race has been made hard, it was a small group in the front for the downhill to the finish and then it was a smaller group going into the sprint but it was a very fast run in here and the final corner was going to be important to be in a good position and everybody knew.”
The corner, on which the riders crashed just beforehand, was nowhere near as perilous as some of the roads heading towards the finish that this race has seen in previous stages. However, such is bike racing that incidents like this crash can happen at any point.
"Actually it wasn’t really dangerous but, yeah, you never know what happens,” Vos said.
Vos retains the points jersey going into stage 8.
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