Update: For his role in starting the crash, Vlad van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious) has been fined 500 CHF and 18 points in the points<\/em> classification, relegation to the last place in his group and a yellow <\/i>card for \u201cd<\/i>eviation from the chosen line that endangers other riders.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Multiple riders came to the line bloodied and banged up Thursday after a mass crash caused havoc in the final of stage 12 of the Tour de France.<\/p>\n Fernando Gaviria (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Dorian Godon (Netcompany Ineos), and stage 11 winner S\u00f8ren W\u00e6renskjold (Uno-X Mobility) were first to fall as the massed peloton blasted toward the final in Chalon-sur-Sa\u00f4ne.<\/p>\n Gaviria hit his head hard as he smashed into the tarmac.<\/p>\n W\u00e6renskjold came down a split second later after seemingly clipping the fallen Colombian\u2019s wheel.<\/p>\n Liam Slock and a handful of his teammates from Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 cartwheeled over the top of the big Norseman. Jonas Abrahamsen also plowed into the back of his Uno-X teammate.<\/p>\n The crash occurred toward the front of the bunch just 350m from the line of Thursday\u2019s lightning-fast sprint stage.<\/p>\n The chaos left only around 15 riders contesting for the kick for victory, which was dominated by \u00a0Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) as he swept to his Tour de France hat trick.<\/p>\n Yellow jersey Tadej Poga\u010dar and his GC rivals were delayed after being caught behind the pile-up.<\/p>\n They were able to make it to the finish unscathed, with no time impacts on GC.<\/p>\n Gaviria didn\u2019t come off as lucky as the GC racers.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old crossed the line several minutes after the crash, clutching his shoulder, possibly with a fractured collarbone.<\/p>\n W\u00e6renskjold also dragged himself to the line looking beat up. His team director Christian Andersen told TV2<\/em> after the stage that the initial prognosis after checks by the team medic seemed positive.<\/p>\n \u201cThe doctor has looked at them, and there\u2019s nothing really serious, but now the doctor is going through them one by one,\u201d Andersen told TV2<\/em>. \u201cSo we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n Godon needed some time to gather his senses after his fall and was seen being attended to by teammates before he pedaled to the finish. The Frenchman went directly to the finish-line medical truck for checks.<\/p>\n K\u00e9vin Vauquelin was one of the first riders to help his teammate Godon.<\/p>\n \u201cI could tell Dorian was immediately in pain,\u201d Vauquelin told Eurosport<\/em> at the finish. \u201cHe was complaining a lot about his back, so he\u2019s going to get some tests done.<\/p>\n \u201cDorian, he\u2019s a friend. So when you see him like that, complaining of back pain and barely able to pedal, it\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n The fallout of the crash will first become clear when ASO issues its post-stage medical report. The bumps and bruises will last a long longer than that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/mass-crash-carnage-in-tour-de-france-stage-12-sprint\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tour-de-france-stage-13-crash.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated July 16, 2026 01:32PM Update: For his role in starting the crash, Vlad van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious) has been fined 500 CHF and 18 points in the points classification, relegation to the last place in his group and a yellow card for \u201cdeviation from the chosen line that endangers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2048676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2048676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2048676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2048676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2048676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Gaviria at epicenter of Tour de France crash<\/h2>\n
![\"Gaviria](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2286391040.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")