Emergency services provided immediate reanimation and transport to the hospital where, despite the best efforts of the surgical team, the sustained injuries proved to be too serious.

"We are all incredibly shaken by this tragedy. Words fail to describe the emotions that we’re all feeling. I share the pain with Bjorg’s family, his team and all members of the cycling community. At the same time I reiterate our full support. Bjorg Lambrecht will forever remain in our memories as an exceptional cyclist and a great man" – Czeslaw Lang, Race Director.

The race organisers, the jury and the teams have made a decision to neutralize the 4th stage of the Tour de Pologne to pay our respects to Bjorg. The stage route has been reduced to 133.7 km and the final laps have been cut to 1. Any further decisions regarding tomorrow’s stage will be communicated in agreement with Lotto - Soudal.

“In the meeting before the stage I said ‘watch for attacks on the finishing laps’ because we know it’s hard and uphill a bit. And that’s what happened, but we had Tsgabu there and it was perfect, it took a lot of pressure off us and for me, I wasn’t thinking about the gap, I was just thinking if we catch them I will sprint, if not we have Tsgabu there.”

“I positioned myself along with Sam Bewley in the perfect position behind Ben Swift because I saw the whole INEOS team were on the front. I was really going deep, it’s been a while since I went so deep, I didn’t know how I was feeling but I got a lot of benefit from altitude training and I’ve lost two-kilos, so that helped a lot on a finish like today.”

“I’m really happy because I was working hard for this, I was really motivated and to get these results straight away it’s a big relief and a sign that the training has been working.”