Samuele Battistella had the Ardennes Classic as one of his key goals for the 2022 season, but a crash during the Amstel Gold Race left him battered and bruised and unconscious on the road.

Fortunately, he was not seriously injured, but will be in Belgium for a rest period instead of racing.

It was around the 150 km mark of the 254.1 km Amstel Gold Race that Battistella's Ardennes plan fell apart. A television camera caught the startling sight of a rider lying on the edge of a roundabout. Fortunately, medical staff rushed to his aid.

After the race, Astana Kazakstan issued a medical update and posted a photo of an injured but smiling Battistella.

In a Twitter post, Astana Kazakustan stated, "I have a scratch on my face, one broken tooth, four stitches in my eyebrow and three stitches in my upper lip."

The rider then took to social media to further post about the effects of the crash, adding.

"I lost my memory of what happened yesterday at the Amstel Gold Race.

"Luckily, the medical staff at the hospital said I was "fine."

The Italian rider has targeted the Ardennes Classics after finishing the season with a win in 2022, the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne on April 20, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege on April 24, and the High training.

Battistella won the Veneto Classic in October 2021, his first professional win on roads close to his hometown. This was also his first win since winning the under-23 road race title at the 2019 Road World Championships in Harrogate, following Nils Ehov's disqualification for drafting; he shifted to the World Tour with NTT and moved to Astana the following year

In the Tour de la Provence in the 2022 season, he finished fourth and fifth in the first two days and was on the podium again this season. On the second stage of the Volta ao Algarve, he finished second behind David Gaudoux (Groupama-FDJ), despite suffering a crash. He abandoned Paris-Nice on stage 3 due to bronchitis and returned to the race at the Amstel Gold Race.