The aftermath of a Tour de France crash.

There have been surprising numbers of morons invading sports fields or courts this year, but the biggest thing that’s usually led to is a brief delay. In the first stage of the Tour de France Saturday, though, a fan who wound up on the course created much more havoc and affected the outcome, causing a giant peleton crash. The fan was standing on the road, holding a sign, and looking at the lead TV camera rather than the approaching riders; rider Tony Martin then hit the sign and crashed into other riders, causing much of the peleton to go down. Here’s video of how this looked on NBCSN, via Timothy Burke:

Here’s one bike that was destroyed in the crash:

And here’s a just-before-it-happened screengrab:

And a screengrab of the aftermath:

This has also led to some teams calling for spectators to stay out of the way:

Martin, the initial rider caught in the crash, was able to continue on after getting a new bike, but some riders wound up abandoning the stage. It was a huge disruption to the race, and hopefully one we won’t see reoccur.

[The Guardian, Timothy Burke and Nick Bull on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.