Twenty-five year old Belgian cyclist Antoine Demoitié was racing at Gent Wevelgem for Wanty-Groupe Gobert this morning, when he was hit by a race motorcycle after crashing. He was taken to the ICU at a nearby hospital in Lille, France, where his team announced that his condition was “extremely serious.”
There were numerous reports floating around that Demoitié has died from his injuries, including one from fellow pro David Boucher (who deleted his original tweet). HLN, a Belgian paper, reported that Demoitié had died, but his team confirmed that he was in the ICU still alive and fighting to recover as of 4:29 p.m. EDT.
Demoitié’s first WorldTour race was Friday’s E3 Harelbeke, where he was in the day’s main break. It’s not yet clear where exactly Demoitié fell, and there isn’t any TV footage, but it appears today’s crash also caught up Dwars door Vlaanderen winner Jens Debusschere.
This is the second gravely serious incident that’s happened in cycling this weekend, as Daan Myngheer suffered a heart attack yesterday and fell into a coma at the Criterium International. Myngheer remains in a coma and his coach told Cycling Weekly that “there are problems with his kidneys and liver.”
We will update this post when more information about Demoitié’s condition becomes available.
Update (6:40 p.m.): Aww hell.