"It was after midnight when suddenly the plaster fell from the ceiling. I was frightened to death" - Oliver Naesen shares a horror story from Eschborn-Frankfurt hotel

Oliver Naesen was sleeping soundly in his hotel room in Germany, ahead of the Eschborn-Frankfurt classic, when suddenly thirty kilograms of plaster fell from the ceiling just next to the Belgian.

"I was in the room with Stan Dewulf who was riding his first race of the season. It was after midnight when suddenly the plaster fell from the ceiling. I was frightened to death. It made so much noise that caregivers from our team also jumped out of their beds and came into the hallway to see what it was," he tells his story to Het Nieuwsblad.

"A large piece also fell on my ankle, which was scraped, blue and somewhat swollen. It was the only part of my body that wasn't under the covers. My teammate had pushed his bed back a bit. It was lucky that I hadn't done that, otherwise the adhesive might have ended up on my head. Fortunately not, because there were quite sharp edges."

"I called the front desk and said that some adhesive had fallen from the ceiling. They came rushing up and didn't know what they saw. We were assigned a different room and our stay was free. But I always sleep for free when I stay in a hotel for a race on behalf of the team (laughs). The colleagues had to laugh when they saw us coming to the breakfast table in white powder the morning of the race."

"In the future I will keep an eye on the ceiling even more than I already did. As a rider you encounter all kinds of things, but this was not everyday," Naesen summarized his nocturnal adventure in Frankfurt.