"Rider from another team didn’t look. Completely took me out" - Matteo Jorgenson gets 'insult to injury' in post-race crash at E3 Saxo Classic

On a day full of incidents at the E3 Saxo Classic, Team Visma | Lease a Bike were arguably the team worst effected by crashes with the drama continuing even after their riders crossed the finish line.

“I was behind a rider from another team who didn’t look back and just turned to his bus immediately, without looking, and completely took me out,” the recent Paris-Nice winner explained in quotes collected by GCN post-race. “We were going 15km/h… it’s more just insult to injury, more than anything.”

Another man of the Visma team to hit the deck was Jorgenson's team leader, Wout van Aert, although the Belgian did manage to get back into the thick of things, finishing third. “We had a lot of unfortunate events happen in a row, and we slowly lost the strength of our team throughout the day. We almost saved it actually, we almost pulled it together, but the nail in the coffin was when Wout crashed on the Paterberg - that kind of ended our race,” Jorgenson assesses.

“I had to manage the group in front, make sure nothing got away, and wait for him to get back. Once he was back, I just set a pace on the Kwaremont to get us closer to Mathieu, hoping he’d be able to get across," concludes the American. Sadly for him, van Aert couldn't quite complete the miraculous comeback.