Steven Kruijswijk lost the Giro d’Italia’s leader’s pink jersey today due to crash coming off the Colle dell’Agnello. Team LottoNL-Jumbo’s front man fell, lost time in his race to return and finished 4-54 minutes behind stage winner Vincenzo Nibali (Astana). Esteban Chavez (Orica - GreenEDGE) took the pink jersey.

The Dutch WorldTour team appeared to be in control as it has over the last three weeks. Kruijswijk was among the best climbers on the hardest climb of the race. “On the top of the Colle dell’Agnello, I was on my limit,” Kruijswijk said. “I wanted to eat and drink something, and followed the others.”

Pain

On that moment, everything went wrong. In the beginning of the descent, Kruijswijk crashed. “I made a stupid mistake. I made a wrong move and crashed in that wall of snow. My bike was battered, and I wasn’t able to continue immediately. After I started riding, everything hurt. I felt pain in my back and my ribs, and my morale was broken. I knew that I had lost time and tried to move on, but it was over. I lost my Giro today.”

Sports Director Addy Engels thinks otherwise. “It isn’t over for Steven,” he added. “The best situation would have been with Steven still in the pink jersey. It looked like that was going to happen because he gave a good impression on the Colle dell’Agnello. The odds are not in our favour anymore, but when he’s able to recover, he can strike back tomorrow.”

Bike change

Kruijswijk could not receive a new bike immediately. “I was the first car behind Kruijswijk’s group, but we were not allowed to go ahead because of the dropped riders,” Engels continued. “We told him to go on with his old bike because we were not behind hem. When we reached him, he said that he wanted to change bikes immediately.

“We kept on shouting for him. It was obvious that he was going to lose a lot of time, but tomorrow is another very hard stage. The way he kept on going today looked like he is still able to push on for tomorrow.”

Kruijswijk went to the hospital, immediately after the stage. There’s an update with medical information to follow.