Year then the only Finnish World Tour professional cyclist Jaakko Hänninen crashed in the second-to-last stage of the Vuelta a Burgos stage race in Spain, and fractured his little finger.
This is how Hänninen lost his chance to participate in his planned main race of the season, the Tour of Spain.
On Wednesday, Hänninen had better luck in the Vuelta a Burgos, because he avoided a bad mass crash in the last kilometer of the second stage.
Crash happened at a speed of about 70 kilometers per hour half a meter before the finish line, when the third driver of the leading team Jumbo-Visma David Decker lost control of his bike at the end of the straight when he unexpectedly encountered a crosswalk brake.
Twenty riders were involved in the crash, and some of them were injured.
Hänninen, who drove strongly in Tuesday’s opening stage and finished 17th, avoided a crash. Instead, his teammates Damien Touzé flew dangerously towards the edge fences. He is under investigation.
According to the rules, everyone who lost time due to the crash got the same time as the winner, the Dutchman from Jumbo-Visma Timo Roosen. They also included Hänninen.
“An uneasy day and the end of the stage absurd. I hope no one was seriously injured, the rest doesn’t really matter,” Hänninen said in the press release of his Finnish club TWD-Länken.
Five stage’s Vuelta a Burgos is a warm-up race for the Tour of Spain. Hänninen’s employer, the French AG2R Citroen team, has not yet announced its competitors for the third grand tour of the season, which starts on August 19.
So it is still possible that Hänninen will drive two three-week tours this season after participating in the tour of Italy in the spring.
Read more: Bloody work accidents have caused Jaakko Hänninen extra laundry: “In the morning, he wakes up like a pharaoh’s wraps”
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