Tour de France organisers have been praised for placing netting on the sheer verge of a mountain descent which caught race leader Sepp Kuss and “might have saved his life”.
Kuss was descending during the final throes of stage 20, the queen stage of the 2026 Tour de France, towards the finish on Alpe d’Huez when lost control at speed on a right-hand bend.
The American Visma-Lease a Bike rider crashed into a low wall on the side of the road and tipped over the edge in a terrifying incident, but was stopped from falling down the mountainside by netting strategically placed by racing organiser ASO.
“I don’t think we can exaggerate this,” said TNT Sport pundit Matt Stephens after the stage. “This could have been a life or death moment. The other side of that [netting] is a precipitous drop.
“The organisers have played a blinder. They knew that if anybody got it wrong, that’s where they’d maybe come off. I think that netting … it might have saved his life.”
Kuss was seen smiling at the finish despite a bloodied leg and elbow.
Fellow analyst Robbie McEwen also praised the safety measure, saying: “We’re not racing on a closed circuit. This is road racing. Everybody knows the inherent risks. The organisers have done everything they can.
“You’re racing at the limit. We’re at the back end of a three week tour. Concentration levels drop a little bit, just the pure intensity of the race – you make one tiny mistake and it’s very, very costly.”
It was Kuss’s second crash in the finale and he was ultimately denied what would have been a memorable victory on a chaotic day’s racing, won by Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz of EF Education-Easypost.
Carapaz and Kuss were part of an early breakaway that formed on the first of four major climbs of the day. The pair, along with Australia’s Jai Hindley, emerged as the strongest riders from the group before Kuss attacked with 17km remaining and opened up a small gap.
Kuss looked on course for victory but crashed in a tunnel and then again on the descent, where he was caught by the netting, as Carapaz reeled him in and surged past.
Carapaz crossed the line 31 seconds clear of Kuss, who was overtaken in the closing metres by Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Evenepoel finished second, 26 seconds behind Carapaz, with Kuss taking third.
Race leader Tadej Pogacar safely negotiated the penultimate stage and is all but certain to claim a fifth Tour de France title on Sunday, holding a lead of more than seven minutes over Evenepoel.
Four riders have died in the long history of the Tour de France, but none since 1995, although three spectators have died since then after being hit by vehicles.
