19-year-old Stef Loos dies in Belgian elite race incident
19 March 2019 02:24
A promising young Belgian cyclist, 19-year-old Stef Loos, was killed in a collision with a van during an elite race in Belgium on Sunday after he and two other riders mistakenly went off course. According to hln.be, Loos, his Acrog-Pauwelssauzen-Balen teammate Jonas Bresseleers, and Ruben Apers of the Lotto Soudal under-23 team were behind the front of the race when they went straight on at a junction where they should have taken a right turn during the Mémorial Alfred Gadenne elite amateur race in Melles, near Tournai in western Belgium, close to the French border. Further on – after racing for a further 1.5km off course – they were hit by a van, with all three riders suffering injuries and subsequently taken to hospitals in nearby Tournai and Ronse. Loos later died of his injuries.ADVERTISEMENT Talking on Belgian radio, according to hln.be, Bresseleers said that he felt guilty for having gone the wrong way, but couldn't remember seeing anything in terms of signage or marshals. "At the decisive junction, I was leading the group and Stef was on my wheel," Bresseleers said. "Had I not gone the wrong way, it might never have happened. They said afterwards that we were no longer on the course because a marshal had sent us the wrong way or was no longer there. But we didn't realise. We still thought that we were chasing the two groups ahead of us. "It's possible that a marshal made a mistake, but that's rare. I don't even know where we left the course, so I can't say if there was a marshal. I really thought I was still on the course," he said. — Belgian Cycling (@BELCycling) March 18, 2019
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