VIDEO: Disaster narrowly avoided as car drives into oncoming peloton at Etoile de Besseges 2025
CyclocrossThursday, 06 February 2025 at 17:05
Stage 2 of the 2025 Etoile de Besseges played out earlier this afternoon in France. In the end, victory went to Uno-X Mobility's Soren Waerenskjold in a bunch sprint. At just inside 17km to go though, a potentially disastrous incident was only just avoided.
As the peloton came firing down a narrow country road, they were suddenly and very scarily met head on by a car driving the other way. Realising their obvious mistake, the car tried to quickly reverse off the road, but as mentioned, there was little room for manoeuvre and as such, a number of riders were brought down in a crash as they and those around them tried to avert disaster.
See the scenes for yourself in the video down below!
Read also
Bordel une voiture à contresens sur l'étoile de Bessèges ... pic.twitter.com/GUR9aM7jlG
— Marc (@marcrp) February 6, 2025
claps 0visitors 0
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Apr 06, 15:11
0
Popular news
Latest comments
- Of course the dimensions have to be checked as long as pro cycling continues to be defined by a traditional bicycle definition, otherwise you open the door to all sorts of weird vehicles, like recumbants to keep the technical side easy. Obviously there can ve a completely different procedure for the check than how it was carried out here. If all went according to how reported, the team/rider should sue the official/UCI for result manipulation, this incident shows among other things, how the door is (left) wide open to corrupting officials to disadvantage people. Would be so easy to do those checks well without stressing riders. Maybe the triathlon system would be a solution ?Mistermaumau04-05-2025
- Agreed! I had forgotten about that moment, a rare misfire by UAE.RidesHills04-05-2025
- The UCI thinks that all of these formalities make it look like they're in control of things, but incidents like this one actually make them look like bumbling, incompetent fools.
santiagobenites04-05-2025 - He's one of the nicest and most humble guys at the top of the sport. Perhaps should have won another stage race already this year but for questionable UAE tactics when Buitrago got away and stole GC.Renz04-05-2025
- Completely Stupid decision yesterday of trying to help his teammateabstractengineer04-05-2025
- What a solid season he has had so far. I wasn’t really noticing bust just checked his stats. He has done only GC races, and placed 2-2-6-1-1 in them. Every single one in the top 10, and only one off the podium? That is solid work. Would have been nice to win yesterday, of course, (a solid climbing stage) but it set him up for today’s GC win. Congrats.RidesHills04-05-2025
- When are the UCI going to get rid of these ridiculous bike checks? I can understand that they would want to check for motors, but surely it makes no sense to have a rider sit on a bike that complies to a set dimension rather than have the bike set up to suit each the riders unique biomechanical needs. What is the purpose of such a dumb process? Is it just something for the guys in blazers to do?Cyclingsbestfan04-05-2025
- Speaking of “Holland” or Denmark flat, isn’t it interesting that they can produce good climbers?Mistermaumau04-05-2025
- I believe I have a pretty good idea what they’re experimenting with. It’s something that won’t work with everyone but can work REALLY well with the right personality.Mistermaumau04-05-2025
- I suspect they have clock syncing problems, two of the IDs have a post at an identical 24:52 (this time format already indicates one problem) on May 4th this year even though those posts don’t show in the chronology of Latest Posts, which indicates they also have time stamp and chronology problems too. The automated information on the internet (time, date, stock market figures, calculations, conversions, etc. are notoriously prone to programming errors and being overlooked. It doesn’t help that virtually no website has a dedicated no-reply link for users to report errors simply without having to navigate opaque hidden general contact addresses or menus.Mistermaumau04-05-2025
I was watching the race this morning, and that was an incredibly sketchy moment. Hopefully Maxim van Gils wasn't too seriously injured, and will be able to return to the peloton soon. Perhaps the UCI needs to be handing out yellow cards to race organizers as well.
Perhaps, or perhaps the UCI should be obliged to provide a minimum number of volunteers for each of the higher categories of races, showing they take the problem of safety a bit seriously when it comes to practical issues?
Organiser obviously lacking volunteers to control crossings. Very lucky despite the falls, if that driver hadn’t had the reflex, skill or sense to reverse the hell back out the way it would have been a lot worse.