Fabio Jakobsen’s bike was left broken in three pieces after going down in the final kilometre of stage 4 of the Tour de France.
The closing kilometers in Nogaro were hectic, three crashes taking place as more and more teams and sprinters made their way to the front of the group. Fabio Jakobsen was among those to hit the ground in the first incident and lost any chance to fight for victory, which went to Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Fortunately, the European Champion got back on his bike and concluded the stage a couple of minutes behind the bunch.
??? | Fabio Jakobsen ging hard onderuit in de aanloop naar de sprint en ploegbaas Patrick Lefevere maakt zich zeker zorgen om de Nederlander. ?? #TDF2023
? Koers kijk je op discovery+ pic.twitter.com/mAlWp60Qeo
— Eurosport Nederland (@Eurosport_NL) July 4, 2023
“Fabio has some wounds on his shoulder and back from the ‘nice’ asphalt. I suppose he won’t sleep very tonight,” team manager Patrick Lefevere explained.
“There were a lot of crashes today on the circuit finish. The question is if it’s the fault of the circuit or of the riders. Some of the sprinters took some big risks. Unfortunately, sprinters always take risks and so it’s inevitable that there are crashes.”
“Fabio is OK but his bike is in three pieces, it was a hard crash,” added DS Tom Steels.
“He lost a lot of skin but let’s hope he recovers and feels OK on the bike so he can suffer through the Pyrenees.”
