"After 15 years pro this is my first broken bone" - Luck runs out for Lizzie Deignan in nasty Tour of Flanders crash

With over 100km to still at last weekend's Tour of Flanders WE, Lidl-Trek's Lizzie Deignan was caught up in a brutal crash that forced the Brit to leave the race battered and bloodied.

As it turns out, Deignan suffered a broken arm in the incident, with that astonishingly being her first-ever fracture after more than a decade and a half in the pro peloton. "So happy to be a part of Lidl-Trek's brilliant classics campaign so far… unfortunately that came crashing down yesterday when I broke my arm," Deignan writes in an update via her official Instagram account.

"I am lucky enough to say that after 15 years pro this is my first broken bone. It feels like I’ve been swimming against the tide recently so I will first take time to recover and then change my direction," she concludes. "Thanks for so many lovely concerned messages."

Despite the loss of Deignan relatively early on, Lidl-Trek ended up joyous as Elisa Longo Borghini took victory in Flanders with Shirin van Anrooij also securing herself a spot on the final podium.