‘Biggest crash ever’ rocks Tour de France Femmes during stage five

A horrifying pileup that wiped out half the peloton has rocked the female Tour de France and saw one rider rushed to hospital.

Monster TdF crash during stage five

The female Tour de France devolved into chaos on Thursday as a mega-pileup swallowed dozens of riders just 45 kilometres from the finish line. Several of the riders sustained injuries and one was rushed to the hospital.

Thursday was the fifth stage of the very first female Tour de France. This stage included a 175-kilometer trip from Bar-Le-Duc to Saint-Die-Des-Vosges.

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This stage was seen as a sprint before the challenging Vosges mountain range on Friday, the NY Post reports.

With 130 kilometres out of the way, riders began to quicken their pace with an open straight up ahead. It was here that the pack tightened up, almost brushing handle bars.

It took one rider to go down to take a majority of the pack with her and those behind soon crashed into the back of the pile. Eventually the road was fully blocked as medics raced to the scene.

A huge crash wiped out a chunk of the peloton on Stage 5 at the Tour de France Femmes…pic.twitter.com/JLJgvUEblA

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) July 29, 2022

Whats with all these massive crashes in the Tour de France Femmes?? This last one is the biggest cycling crash I've ever seen. Just a massive pile of bikes and cyclists.

— André Noruega (@AndreOstgaard) July 28, 2022

Those who were OK quickly scrambled back onto their bikes to hunt down the leaders, but several were injured, including Danish star Emma Norsgaard of Movistar, who was rushed to the hospital with a broken collarbone.

Last month, Italian rider Daniel Oss broke his neck in the very same stage after colliding with a fan and the previous years race saw half the peloton collected on the fifth stage as well.

This article originally appeared on the NY Post and was reproduced with permission.