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BELGIAN rider Wouter Weylandt was killed in a horrific high-speed crash in the Giro d'Italia overnight.

 

Weylandt, 26, was left bloodied and unconscious and requiring a cardiac massage after the crash on the descent of the Bocco mountain pass, around 25km from the finish line of the tour's third stage.

 

Race officials said his left pedal got stuck in a wall at the side of the road, causing Weylandt to fall about 20 metres to the road below.

 

"Today, our teammate and friend Wouter Weylandt passed away after a crash on the third stage of the Giro d'Italia," said Bryan Nygaard, a spokesman for Weylandt's Leopard-Trek team.

 

"The team is left in a state of shock and sadness and we send all our thoughts and deepest condolences to the family and friends of Wouter."

 

Weylandt received emergency medical treatment by race doctors and was scheduled to be airlifted to a local hospital but had to wait as an emergency helicopter looked for a suitable landing spot.

 

Weylandt, who spent the bulk of his career with the Belgian team Quick Step after becoming professional in 2006, won the third stage of the race last year, in Middelburg, the Netherlands.

 

He joined new Luxembourg outfit Leopard-Trek at the start of the season.

 

Weylandt is the first rider to die in a crash while racing since Kazakhstan's Andrei Kivilev succumbed to head injuries the morning after a crash on the second stage of Paris-Nice in 2003.

 

Kivilev's death, while the rider was traveling at a seemingly innocuous speed, signaled the introduction of the mandatory wearing of helmets in the professional peloton.

 

Weylandt is the first fatality on the Giro since 1986 when Emilio Ravasio crashed on the first stage and fell into a coma, only to die several days later.

 

Although life and career-threatening crashes are a regular occurrence in cycling, the last fatality on the world's biggest race, the Tour de France, was over a decade ago.

 

On the race's 15th stage in 1995 Italy's Fabio Casartelli - a member of seven-time winner Lance Armstrong's Motorola team - died a few hours after sustaining injuries in a crash on the descent of the Portet d'Aspet in the Pyrenees.

 

On learning the news of cycling's latest tragedy, Armstrong shared his grief on Twitter.

 

"Just back from a run and got the news of Wouter Weylandt's death today in the Giro," Armstrong wrote. "I'm shocked and saddened. May he rest in peace."