A crash during Saturday's stage of the Eneco Tour of Benelux forced BMC Racing Team's Taylor Phinney to immediately withdraw, while teammate Philippe Gilbert continued on and finished. But the world road champion will be unable to start Sunday's final stage due to a deep cut on his left knee that required stitches, BMC Racing Team Dr. Giovanni Ruffini said.

Phinney – who had been sitting fourth overall, eight seconds off the lead – said he also landed hard on his left knee in the crash that took down several teammates and at least a dozen riders. The pile-up happened about 60 kilometres from the end of the 150-km race.

"The team was all lined up on the right, trying to move up and the crash happened in front of all of us," Phinney said. "It started with Alessandro Petacchi and Gabriel Rasch and sort of dominoed out into the middle of the road." Phinney, who was also involved in a crash Wednesday on stage 3, said he initially tried to continue. "But I couldn't bend my leg. It was too painful," he said. Ruffini said an X-ray performed on Phinney's knee revealed nothing broken, but Gilbert's injury was more serious. "Like Taylor, there was no problem with Philippe's tendons or muscle, but he needed some stitches," Ruffini said. "He will have to stay quiet for four days."

Assistant Director Yvon Ledanois credited Gilbert's teammates for helping the 2011 Eneco Tour runner-up regain the peloton and eventually finish 22nd, 1’37” behind stage winner David Lopez (Sky Procycling), who survived out of an original 11-man breakaway. "It was a lot of work for the team, basically a 60-kilometre time trial," Ledanois said. "It was a good job by all of them to group around him after the crash." Tom Dumoulin (Team Argos-Shimano) finished fourth and assumed the race lead from Lars Boom (Belkin Pro Cycling.