Spanish cyclist crashes while celebrating – even though he finished second

Spanish cyclist Eduard Prades suffered a humiliating end to his stage in a race in Greece as he crashed at the finish line while celebrating a stage victory – only to find out he finished second.

The 34-year-old was fighting at the front of the the peloton during Stage One of the Tour of Hellas in Greece. He assumed the lead of the peloton and sprinted for the finish line, appearing to cross the line first to seal victory in the stage.

As he raised his arms in celebration, the unfortunate Prades saw his saddle fall off at the wrong moment and the Spaniard crashed to the ground. Later in the day, Prades found out he suffered greater embarrassment than it originally appeared.

Prades found out Aaron Gate, the Bolton Equities-Black Spoke rider from New Zealand, was actually the stage winner after he broke away from the chasing pack earlier in the race. The news undoubtedly came as a shock for Prades, who rides for the Caja Rural-Seguros RGA team.

“Both Trek and we have been attacking for much of the climb and in the end Jon [Barrenetxea] gave me a hand on the descent to catch the breakaway group,” Prades said.

“We caught them but the truth is that we didn't have much information and the way the race was going I thought there was no one left in front, that's why in the end I raised my arms.”

Prades finished second ahead of Filippo Baroncini and Luc Wirtgen, but ultimately his celebration didn’t match his result. The race was won by Gate, whose margin of victory was one minute and 46 seconds.

The stage was the incredibly hilly 190.1km route from Heraklion to Chania on the Greek island of Crete.

Remarkably, it is certainly not the first time a top cyclist has performed an ill-fated celebration. In fact, world champion Julian Alaphilippe prematurely celebrated early in 2020 in Liege, losing in the final sprint to Primoz Roglic.

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