Kennaugh crashes out in California
Peter Kennaugh suffered a broken collarbone after a heavy crash in the stage three at the Tour of California. The British road race champion fell in the peloton 17 kilometres from the finish after a gruelling day in America and was taken straight to hospital.
Kennaugh’s crash came just before the start of the first summit finish of the race in the Golden State, atop the 12km Gibraltar Road, where Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx – Quick-Step) powered to a fine solo victory and moved into the race lead.
Speaking after the stage Sport Director Gabriel Rasch said: “We were looking all good until Pete crashed. When he crashed the guys waited for him and pretty quickly we saw he couldn’t carry on.
“But by then it was almost too late so the guys just went in the grupetto from there. The crash came at the worst possible time, just before the final climb.”
Despite the team losing time on the GC Rasch remains upbeat and believes there will be stage win opportunities during the coming week.
He added: “We still have some good chances this week, with Danny [van Poppel] in the sprints and we will see how Lars Petter [Nordhaug] is. There are a couple of stages with some pretty hard finals so we will see how he goes there.”
