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UAE Team Emirates pro hit head-on by motorist while training

Colombian sprinter Juan Sebastián Molano, a teammate of Tadej Pogačar, was fortunate to only suffer concussion and a broken toe in the horrifying collision

UAE Team Emirates’ Colombian sprinter Juan Sebastián Molano has suffered concussion and a broken toe, but was fortunate to avoid even more serious injury, after being struck head-on by a motorist in a horrifying collision while training in Belgium.

While his team leader Tadej Pogačar was putting on a dazzling display over the Flemish cobbles at the E3 Saxo Classic, Molano – who has enjoyed a successful spring campaign of his own, winning the Grand Prix de Denain cobbled semi-classic and taking a stage of the UAE Tour – was training alone in nearby Waregem yesterday when he was hit by a motorist who appeared to be turning into a driveway and across the rider’s lane.

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Footage of the shocking crash, captured by a nearby CCTV camera and published by Belgian broadcaster Sporza, shows the 28-year-old riding along before being suddenly struck head-on by the turning motorist, catapulting Molano out of shot and sending his bike flying into the driveway.

Fortunately, and rather miraculously, the sprinter’s injuries were not too severe and did not require surgery, but do mean that he is ruled out of the upcoming cobbled classics, including tomorrow’s Gent-Wevelgem and, almost certainly, next Sunday’s Tour of Flanders.

“Unfortunately Juan Sebastián Molano will be ruled out of Gent-Wevelgem, having sustained numerous injuries in a training crash in Belgium,” a statement from his UAE Team Emirates squad read last night.

“Amongst his injuries, Molano suffered concussion and a fractured toe which will keep him on the sidelines for some weeks.”

According to reports, the Colombian was discharged from hospital today and has travelled home to Andorra, where he will hope to recover in time for next month’s Tour de Hongrie.

> "I almost died...I'm back! Let's rock!": Egan Bernal looking to the future after successful final surgery

It wasn’t a good weekend for Colombia’s top riders, as Molano’s compatriot Egan Bernal – who is in the midst of a comeback to the sport following his horrific training crash last year – was forced to abandon the Volta a Catalunya today following another spill.

Fortunately, the 2019 Tour de France winner, who sustained horrific injuries, including multiple fractures and a punctured lung, after he hit a parked bus while training at home in Colombia last January, did not suffer any fractures in today’s fall and will be treated for skin abrasions, a statement from his Ineos Grenadiers team has said.

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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