Greg Van Avermaet receives San Sebastian apology, but doesn't understand it

Greg Van Avermaet has received a letter of apology from the organisers of the Clasica San Sebastian after he was knocked off by a motorbike, but it was written in Spanish, so he didn't understand it.

The Belgian was challenging for the win at the post-Tour de France Classic, but was sent flying by a crashing motorbike in the final kilometres.

Van Avermaet claims it cost him the win, which prompted Simon Yates to defend the credibility of his brother Adam's victory. But Van Avermaet seems reasonably satisfied with what he believes to be an apology.

"The letter was written in Spanish. But I do not speak Spanish," he told Het Laaste Nieuws. "You can still deduce that the organization apologises."

One of Van Avermaet's main gripes with the incident is that he was cost the chance of further enhancing his UCI ranking points. A win or second place in San Sebastian would have moved him into the top-10 overall, but as it is he lies in 17th place.

He added: "It's over and you can do nothing more. A win or a second place would have given me 80 or 60 World Tour points. Then I would now be in the top ten of the WorldTour individual classification."