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VIDEO: Pensioner on Mobility Scooter Causes Major Crash at Germany’s LVM Saarland Trofeo

Chaos erupted at the LVM Saarland Trofeo when a pensioner on a mobility scooter rolled into the road mid-stage, triggering a spectacular crash that sent 17-year-old rider Paul Vriesman flipping through the air like a human boomerang.

The incident unfolded during the fourth and final stage of the junior multi-day race, just as the peloton was thundering past at full speed. The woman, who had edged her mobility scooter forward to get a closer look at the action, suddenly found herself in the action instead — colliding head-on with Vriesman in a moment that left spectators gasping and riders swerving for their lives.

Vriesman hit the scooter with such force that he was launched upside-down, performing an involuntary mid-air rotation that would have earned applause in a gymnastics arena. Several riders behind him had nowhere to go and piled into the chaos, bikes skidding, bodies tumbling, carbon snapping.

Miraculously, despite the sheer violence of the crash, all riders involved escaped without serious injury. Vriesman, who moments earlier had been airborne, walked away shaken but intact — a minor miracle considering the physics involved.

The pensioner is also believed to be unharmed, though her mobility scooter did not fare as well. After absorbing the full impact of a charging junior peloton, the machine is widely assumed to be a total write-off, its front end reportedly resembling “a pretzel made of sadness”.

Race officials neutralised the section while medics checked riders and marshals attempted to restore order to what had briefly become a surreal collision between high-speed sport and low-speed mobility.

The LVM Saarland Trofeo, normally known for showcasing the next generation of cycling talent, will now also be remembered for one of the most bizarre spectator-related incidents in recent memory — a reminder that in bike racing, danger can come from anywhere, including a pensioner on a scooter rolling into the road at exactly the wrong moment.