'Without him, I think I'd still be somewhere in Belgium' – lost British pro returned to race by fan at Omloop Nieuwsblad

Noah Hobbs was saved by a local fan after getting lost during Omloop Nieuwsblad on Saturday.

After sustaining two unlucky mechanicals during the race in Belgium, the 21-year-old got lost trying to return to the bunch.

"It was going well, and then I got a puncture,” the EF Education-EasyPost rider explained in a video on Instagram. “I came back, broke my front wheel, then went to go back, but I don't know where I was. Then this guy helped me out and took me [to the finish]."

"He's a good guy. Without him, I think I'd still be somewhere in Belgium," he said.

It’s not unheard of for riders to get lost during races. Massimo Ghirotto finished the 14th stage of the 1988 Tour de France with an uncontested win after the race-leaders took a wrong turn.

In 2015, the Danish rider Lasse-Norman Hansen won the fifth stage of the Tour of Alberta after his chaser Sven Erik Bystrøm missed a turning, taking the entire peloton with him. To get entirely lost, however, is a rarer occurrence, possibly down to misleading signage.

With no phone to navigate him back-on track and little knowledge of the local roads, Hobbs was rescued by a passing fan and returned to the finish.

“Another reason why we love racing in Belgium,” the team wrote on Instagram of the incident. “Shout out to our new friend.”

Hobbs wasn’t the only rider waylaid during the race. Of the 175 riders who lined up on Saturday, only 136 crossed the finish line. Among the injured were Stefan Küng (Tudor Pro Cycling) with a fractured femur, Rick Pluimers (Tudor Pro Cycling) with two broken teeth and Vlad Van Mechelen (Bahrain Victorious) with a broken collarbone.

The severity of the injuries sustained by cyclists this year, coupled with the wet conditions prompted Arnaud De Lie (Lotto–Intermarché) to call it “the most dangerous Omloop of my life” in a conversation with Sporza.