"Broken collarbones and lost teeth" - Massive oversight of race organizers causes havoc in the finale of Ronde van Limburg

Ronde van Limburg was for the first time in its history moved onto a lucrative spot in cycling calendar, right between the cobbled Classics and Ardennes. The director of organizing party Flanders Classics expressed the ambition to, in future, build up the race to be a key stepping stone with view to Amstel Gold Race, but the "innaugural" edition was far from perfect.

Chaos unfolded in last kilometer when a wild crash occured as riders suddenly appeared at both sides of barriers. In particular the Team Flanders-Baloise was heavily affected as their riders were riding at the left side of the road. "This arrival was just super unsafe," Yentl Vandevelde told WielerFlits, visibly upset after the race.

"This really shouldn't happen at this level," he explains. "Half of the peloton swerved behind the barriers, which were super unsafe. Teammate Alex Colman was the first to ride into a barrier that didn't even have any protection."

So what exactly was wrong with the finish? "They should have either started putting up barriers earlier in the final kilometre, or not put up any barriers at all. Now there was no escape," Vandevelde believes.

The riders had an idea as to what to expect, because of the three local laps before the sprint, but when you barely see the rider in front while going full gas in the finale, some dangers just cannot be evaded. "I told my teammates in the penultimate lap that I was convinced they were going to crash here, because the peloton already veered to the left in that particular bend."

"So I wanted to play it safe in the final lap and take the inside turn with our sprinter Vince Gerits on the wheel. But Colman fell right in front of me. I couldn't avoid him and fell straight on my back."

On the live images we saw Vandevelde disillusionedly walking over the finish line on foot, but his teammates were less lucky. "Vince broke his collarbone and Alex probably lost teeth," Vandevelde sighs.