Vuelta crash KO’s Tejay van Garderen while Jasper Stuyven wins stage

Belgian rider Jasper Stuyven of Trek Factory Racing won stage 8 of the Vuelta on a day when several big names were forced to abandon following a crash.

Boeckmans ended up lying on his side and his Lotto-Soudal team said he was taken to a hospital in the southern region of Murcia.

Boeckmans’ Lotto-Soudal team tweeted that he had gone to the hospital, adding that “he’s conscious and the situation is stable”.

Spain’s Pello Bilbao (Caja Rural) took second place ahead of Frenchman Kevin Reza (FDJ) in a sprint finish after 182.5 km between Puebla de Don Fabrique and Murcia.

“He has concussion, 3 broken ribs and bleeding in his lung”.

Green jersey Sagan was driving the chase when he appeared to veer into the path of a passing motorbike – resulting in some nasty road-rash to his left buttock after his bib shorts were ripped to shreds.

“Normally when you look on the race book it is an easy day but it was really hard really fast unsafe and with a lot of crashes” he said.

Colombian Esteban Chaves finished in the leading group to maintain his overall lead by 10 seconds from Tom Dumoulin with Irishman Nicholas Roche a further 26 seconds behind in third. There were nervy, unsafe descents.

“A Shimano auxiliary motorbike recklessly and dangerously drove into the peloton at high speed hitting Peter Sagan in his rear wheel”.

In quite shocking scenes, Slovakia’s Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) was also knocked off his bike in an apparent collision with a neutral race vehicle in the closing 10km of the race – just as the race was entering its business end following back-to-back ascents of the Cresta del Gallo climb.

“More than the nerves, the heat we have been dealing with for the past few days has been inhuman”, the Tour runner-up said.

Riders get little relief in Sunday’s ninth stage, a 168.3-kilometer (104.5-mile) ride from Torrevieja to the Cumbre del Sol or “Summit of the Sun” peak.