Defending Amstel Gold Race winner Enrico Gasparotto (Astana) hit a truck at high speed on Thursday while training behind a motor scooter in Italy three days ahead of the race.

Gasparotto was on a training ride near Lake Como with Astana Sports Director, Stefano Zanini, when a delivery truck unexpectedly pulled out of a driveway to cross the road. Zanini was able to brake his motor scooter and avoid a collision, but Gasparotto had no chance of making a full stop and crashed into the truck and then onto the road.

"It was impossible to brake. We were going 45 maybe 50 kph on a little bit of a descent, and it was impossible not to crash. I was very, very lucky that there was no real damage. My body is a little bit hurt, and my bike was not so good. I have a little bit of pain right now, but today is Thursday, and I can go to the osteopath tonight and everything should be good by Sunday," Gasparotto said on the Astana website.

Gasparotto, who won the Amstel Gold Race last year and finished on the podium one week later behind teammate Maxim Iglinskiy at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, said he was strongly focused on the Ardennes Classics, and found the crash in the final days of training a nervous distraction to the races, but was more worried that Zanini would physically fight the truck driver.

"For me this is the most important week of the year, and I want to have good races in the Ardennes, so I continued my training session and that was all I could do. I yelled at the driver that this is my job, I don't go out on the bike just for fun, and he has no idea the sacrifices we make to be professionals. But Zaza [Zanini] is a big man and he was really angry, and I really thought he was going to hit him," Gasparotto said.

Astana Pro Team riders for Amstel Gold Race:

Jakob Fuglsang - DEN

Enrico Gasparotto - ITA

Francesco Gavazzi - ITA

Andriy Grivko - UKR

Maxim Iglinskiy - KAZ

Alexey Lutsenko - KAZ

Simone Ponzi - ITA

Kevin Seeldraeyers - BEL

Starting at 14.30 on Sunday you can follow the action from Amstel Gold Race live here on Cyclingquotes.com