Jonas Vingegaard crahed on his bike with 84km to go on stage five of Paris-Nice earlier this month, cutting his upper lip, and appearing to hurt his wrist.
Vingegaard contacted the race doctor after getting back on his feet, but was allowed to finish the stage without further examination. It later turned out that he had suffered a concussion.
"I contacted the race doctor because I had blood on my face. But they didn't want to check me for a concussion, which I found strange. My glasses were broken, I had blood on my face and on my eyebrow."
"In the future, they should check everyone who is hit from the shoulders up before letting them continue", Jonas Vingegaard says to the press from the high-altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada.
In the days after the crash, he was only able to stay awake for an hour at a time.
And it didn't help the recovery that he was very too eager to get back on the bike.
"I suffered from it at first, but every day I made progress, and on Monday (four days after the crash, ed.) I thought I could try sitting on the bike for an hour. It really backfired."
"I was very dizzy afterwards and had to go to sleep, so I didn't touch the bike for the next four days. The following Friday or Saturday was my first day on the bike again."
"But by then it was so late that I had to cancel my participation in the Tour of Catalonia", says Jonas Vingegaard.
The accident meant that Vingegaard had to reschedule his calendar. The Critérium du Dauphiné in mid-June will be his only test of strength before the Tour de France.