Tour de Yorkshire race marshal avoids serious injury after Astana team car crashes

A race marshal was forced to take evasive action on Sunday after an Astana team car crashed into a traffic island on the 189.5km fourth and final stage of the Tour de Yorkshire.

Standing in the middle of the road, volunteer Phillip Sullivan was working for race organisers to ensure rider safety by alerting them to the danger of the traffic island after the road beared to the right.

However, the driver of the Astana team car following the small group of riders leading the stage appeared to not have seen Sullivan who was quick-witted enough to leap out of the way of the oncoming vehicle.

Following the incident, Astana apologised to Sullivan saying that they hoped a similar incident would 'never happen again'.

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"We’re deeply sorry about the incident with our team car," the team said in a tweet posted on Monday morning. "The sport director that was driving the car contacted the race organiser directly after the race to send our apologies. We’re trying to get in touch with the marshal as well. We’re sorry and want this to never happen again."

Meanwhile, Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) secured overall victory at the race after Frenchman Stéphane Rossetto (Cofidis, Solutions Credits) took a brilliant solo win into Leeds.

Rossetto attacked from the breakaway on the punishing climb of Park Rash and stayed clear for over 110 kilometres of the 189.5km stage from Halifax, which took the riders through the Yorkshire Dales.

Behind, Van Avermaet led the chase group over the line to take the general classification as the overnight leader Magnus Cort Nielsen of Astana lost contact with the peloton.

Rossetto had approached Park Rash alongside Canyon-Eisberg's Max Stedman, but he left the 22-year-old Briton in his wake midway up the 2.2km long climb, which averages 10.5 per cent.

With two more categorised climbs ahead of him, plus an intermediate sprint at the top of a climb which might have been categorised on any other day, few would have given Rossetto much hope.

A lead which had at one point been over six minutes tumbled in the final kilometres but he had enough left to take victory on the day by 34 seconds.

Van Avermaet dedicated his overall victory to the late Andy Rihs, the BMC Racing team owner who died at the age of 75 last month.

"I think we all had it in mind to win a race for him," he said. "Tomorrow is his funeral. He was a big boss for us, a big supporter for many years at BMC. The work the team did was incredible and we all had him in mind and it was really great I could finish it off.

"Thank you to Andy, thank you to the team. It's so great I can win this and it's great I can have Yorkshire on my palmarès."