Cycling: Truck racing in Quick-Step-Trainingsgruppe: Vertebral fractures at Radprofi Vakoc

A training group of the Belgian top cycling team Quick-Step Floors has been hit by a truck in South Africa. The Czech professional Petr Vakoc (25) suffered several vertebral fractures and has to be operated on.

Like Vakoc, the Belgian Laurens De Plus was admitted to Nelspruit hospital, but the 22-year-old was only slightly injured. The Luxembourg Bob Jungels (25), who had worn the pink jersey at the Giro last year, remained unharmed.

“Suddenly I heard a loud noise and saw Petr and Laurens lying on the asphalt. They were injured, so I didn’t dare to move them,”Jungels is quoted by the team in a statement:”I didn’t see the truck when it came in from behind, but it must have hit them with the left wing mirror or even with the left front.”

Quick-Step is the former team of the German top riders Marcel Kittel and Tony Martin, currently a German is under contract with the team in Maximilian Schachmann in Berlin “That’s terrible, I keep my fingers crossed for you guys! Good recovery,”Kittel wrote a little later on Twitter.

Top sprinter John Degenkolb also sent requests for recovery via the social network on Friday. In 2016, the driver himself suffered serious injuries when a British tourist had hit a training group of the Giant-Alpecin team with her car.

In general, collisions between bicycle professionals and motor vehicles have repeatedly occurred in recent years. In 2017, the former Giro winner Michele Scarponi (Italy) died during a training trip after a collision with a truck.