Crash forces overall leader Lotte Kopecky to abandon Tour de l’Ardeche

Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) was forced to abandon stage 3 at the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche due to injuries sustained in an early-race crash on Thursday.

The extent of her injuries was unknown, and SD Worx-Protime had not yet released an official medical update.

The racing resumed on stage 3 following the cancellation of stage 2 due to protests in the area the previous day, with the route starting in Avignon and taking the peloton into Pernes-les-Fontaines.

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The World Champion lined up as the overall race leader after winning stage 1. However, she was involved in a crash during the first 35km of the 119km stage, just before an intermediate sprint at Sorgues, where she was forced to abandon.

It’s been an up-and-down year for Kopecky, who started her season later than usual at Milan-San Remo, partly to give her more time to recover from an injury at the end of the 2024 season and to allow her the freedom to focus on select races in 2025.

While she won the Tour of Flanders, she later struggled with an ongoing back injury that led to her abandoning the Giro d’Italia and that injury disrupted much of her summer stage racing season.

Kopecky had only just restarted her season after struggling through the Tour de France Femmes in early August.

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Although she had made the difficult decision not to defend her title at the upcoming UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, she recently returned to track racing in Prague, where she won the omnium, elimination, and points race during the two-day UCI event before lining up at the Tour de l’Ardèche.

After l’Ardeche, Kopecky had intended to turn her attention to track racing and possibly the time trial event at the European Championships on October 1 in Étoile-sur-Rhône, a title she also won last year.

However, due to the injuries sustained at the Tour de l’Ardeche, it was unclear if Kopecky would continue with her racing plans.