Breschel avoids serious injury after being struck by mattress
Danish classics rider says he crashed hard Sunday after a mattress took out his front wheel
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Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo) said Monday he escaped serious injury in a bizarre crash following the final stage at the Tour of Oman.
“After the stage, we were riding back to our hotel and on a descent when I was going 70 kilometers an hour, a mattress flew into my front wheel and brought the bike to a standstill,” Breschel said via a team press release. “I hit the asphalt pretty hard and lost a lot of skin on my legs and face and the wound on my knee had to be stitched up. It’s still too early to say, but I trust it doesn’t influence my preparations for the classic campaign and I’ll stick to my regular training program. I’m not concerned at this moment.”
Breschel will start Paris-Nice in mid-March before a run at the northern classics. Breschel finished sixth at the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) in 2009.