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RAPALLO, Italia (AFP) – European rider Wouter Weylandt was noticeable dead weekday mass a horrific break on the ordinal initiate of the Giro d'Italia, his Leopard-Trek aggroup confirmed.

"Today, our associate and someone Wouter Weylandt passed absent after a break on the ordinal initiate of the Giro d?Italia," said Leopard-Trek Manager Brian Nygaard.

"The aggroup is left in a land of damper and unhappiness and we send all our thoughts and deepest condolences to the kinsfolk and friends of Wouter.

"This is a difficult period for cycling and for our team, and we should all essay hold and strength in the people near to us."

Weylandt, 26, was left bloodied and comatose and requiring a cardiac massage after a break which occurred on the declination of the Bocco mountain transfer around 25km from the finish line.

Race officials after claimed his left pedal got cragfast in a surround at the lateral of the road, forcing Weylandt to tumble around 20 metres to the connector below.

He conventional crisis scrutiny treatment by vie doctors and was scheduled to be airlifted to hospital but had to move as an crisis eggbeater looked for a fit construction spot.

"His heart has obstructed beating," declared Auro Bulbarelli, the nous of climb for RAI television who prototypal poor the sad news.

Weylandt, who spent the bulk of his occupation with the European aggroup Quick Step after turning professed in 2006, won the ordinal initiate of the vie terminal year, in Middelburg (Netherlands).

He connected new Luxemburg appurtenances Leopard-Trek, the bag of inhabitant royalty O'Grady and the Schleck brothers Andy and Frank, at the move of the season.

Weylandt is the prototypal rider to expire in a break while racing since Kazakhstan's Andrei Kivilev succumbed to nous injuries the farewell after a break on the second initiate of Paris-Nice.

Kivilev's death, while the rider was travelling at a ostensibly innoxious speed, signalled the introduction of the dominion act of helmets in the professed peloton.

Weylandt, who hailed from Ghent, is the prototypal decease on the Giro since 1986 when Emilio Ravasio crashed on the prototypal initiate and lapse into a comatoseness to expire individual chronicle later.

Although chronicle and career-threatening crashes are a lawful occurrence in cycling, the terminal decease on the world's large race, the Tour de France, was over a decennium ago.

On the race's 15th initiate in 1995 Italy's Fabio Casartelli -- a member of Lance Armstrong's Motorola aggroup -- died a few hours after sustaining injuries in a break on the declination of the Portet d'Aspet in the Pyrenees.

Following the tragedy vie organisers cancelled the post-race start in Rapallo, where Spaniard Angel Vicioso, of the Androni team, won the initiate aweigh of new vie cheater king Millar of kingdom (Garmin).

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