Tour de France Rider Breaks Neck After Colliding with a Spectator and Exits Competition

Tommy McArdle
·2 min read
Daniel Oss of Italy and Team Total Energies during the team presentation prior to the 109th Tour de France 2022, Stage 2 a 202,2km stage from Roskilde to Nyborg / #TDF2022 / #WorldTour / on July 02, 2022 in Nyborg, Denmark.
Daniel Oss of Italy and Team Total Energies during the team presentation prior to the 109th Tour de France 2022, Stage 2 a 202,2km stage from Roskilde to Nyborg / #TDF2022 / #WorldTour / on July 02, 2022 in Nyborg, Denmark.
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Tour de France cyclist Daniel Oss broke his his neck when he collided with spectators, forcing him to exit this year's competition.

Oss, an Italian cyclist competing with the road racing team Team TotalEnergies, collided with fans during Wednesday's Stage 5, which took racers 157 kilometers (97.5 miles) between the cities of Lille and Arenberg, France, according to the Tour de France website.

Footage of the accident posted to Twitter appears to show 35-year-old Oss colliding with a fan wearing a yellow shirt before he plunged into another spectator who leaned into the race path to film riders as they passed by. Two other cyclists appeared to fall off their bicycles in the collision, too.

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Oss finished Wednesday's stage after the incident, according to CNN, but Team TotalEnergies confirmed in a statement posted to Twitter that the Italian pro will leave the Tour de France as a result of injuries sustained in the collision.

"Additional examinations revealed a fracture of a cervical vertebra requiring immobilization for a few weeks," the team wrote in a statement.

"The whole team wishes you a good recovery, Daniel," the statement added.

The 2022 Tour de France Stage 5 included a total of 19.4 kilometers (12.04 miles) of "narrow, rough cobbled road," like what Oss was riding on when the collision occurred, according to Bicycling Magazine. Multiple crashes were reported during Wednesday's stage, but not all resulted in injuries as serious as Oss' broken neck, according to CNN.

The Tour de France did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on the incident.

Daniel Oss of Italy and Team Total Energies competes passing through the cobblestones sector #1 of Wallers during the 109th Tour de France 2022, Stage 5 a 157km stage from Lille to Wallers-Arenberg / #TDF2022 / #WorldTour / on July 06, 2022 in Wallers, France.
Daniel Oss of Italy and Team Total Energies competes passing through the cobblestones sector #1 of Wallers during the 109th Tour de France 2022, Stage 5 a 157km stage from Lille to Wallers-Arenberg / #TDF2022 / #WorldTour / on July 06, 2022 in Wallers, France.

Sylvain Lefevre/Getty

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Collisions at the Tour de France, even between spectators and cyclists, are nothing new. In 2021, a 30-year-old woman was arrested by French police after she leaned into the race course holding a large sign, colliding with a cyclist and creating a massive pileup. While the Tour ultimately dropped its lawsuit against the woman, she was ultimately fined €1,200 ($1,357, at the time) for causing the pileup, according to the BBC.

Australian Simon Clarke won Wednesday's Stage 5, according to the Tour de France website. As of Friday, Slovenian Tadej Pogačar leads the competition at large.

The Tour de France runs through July 24.