VIDEO | Chaos at Paris-Nice - Yellow jersey Juan Ayuso abandons after crash on rainy stage

Stage 4 of Paris-Nice is delivering the chaos that the first days have not had, however not for the positive reasons. The stage, hit very hard by strong rain and wind, saw plenty splits happen right from the start of the day. However splits were far from the most important moment of the afternoon, as Juan Ayuso has been forced to abandon the race due to a crash.

The front of the race featured a group of around 30 riders, led by Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe with several riders. The day, mostly flat but with a hilly finale; had the riders in a relatively flat section when with 47 kilometers to go, several riders crashed. With the heavy rain and multiple groups on the road it was not clear what happened, but several riders went down, with different levels of severity.

Juan Ayuso, the yellow jersey and main favourite to win the overall classification, went down. He got back on the back but after a few seconds he came back down once again, laying on the side of the road in pain and with an obvious DNF in the results sheet. It will be important to wait for words from Lidl-Trek to understand the severity of his injuries, but they come in a key moment of the spring in which the big stage-races begin in Europe.