Belgian rider Liam Slock won his first professional race in unusual circumstances at the GP Gippingen on Sunday, crashing over the finish line.
The 25-year-old Lotto Intermarché rider was blown off-balance as he went to celebrate with the finish just metres away, and ended up winning shoulder first. It meant that the photos of his maiden victory are interesting, to say the least.
It did not matter that he did not ride across the line, as with his bike, he made it across, and took the victory. Fortunately, he was also largely unharmed.
"Luckily the win came with it, otherwise this would probably have been the fail of the year,” Slock said post-race. “There was an incredibly strong wind and I briefly underestimated it. I realised quite early that I was going to win and started celebrating early because I really wanted to enjoy the moment. I raised my arms in the air and then a gust of wind caught my handlebars...
"The fact that I then crashed makes this a story worth framing. It feels a bit silly, but above all I’m just incredibly happy.”
The Belgian had bridged across to Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), and attacked the pair on the steep final climb, with 500m to go, putting enough daylight between him and the chasers to celebrate.
"The race had actually been going really well all day," Slock explained. "We were always where we needed to be every lap. At one point a large group got away and I was able to follow comfortably. When Aleksandr Vlasov and Richard Carapaz attacked in the finale, I decided to bridge across.
"That took a lot of energy because those guys are among the very best. But once I made it across, I tried to save as much energy as possible. I thought that if I managed to do that, I might be able to win."
However, as he took his hands of the handlebars, a gust of wind took his bike away from him, meaning that Slock will be immortalised as crashing across the finish line, as opposed to just being the successor to Thibau Nys, Maxim Van Gils and Neilson Powless as winner of the Swiss one-day race.
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