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Strava helps find missing Trek directeur sportif Steven De Jongh

Rider discovered unconscious in a ravine

It was a tense Twitter morning on Monday after Trek-Segafredo directeur sportif Steven De Jongh’s wife tweeted that he was missing on a ride near his home in Girona, Spain. Having left at 10:30, he was incommunicado after three hours.

After 2500 retweets, Strava users when able to ascertain that 62-km into the ride, he wasn’t farther from 15-km from his home, which helped police and others to pinpoint their search. LottoNL-Jumbo pro Robert Gesink, who lives nearby, jumped on his bike to aid in the search.

De Jongh was found by a search helicopter unconscious in a ravine near the bottom of a descent close to La Ganga and transported to a Girona hospital.

By Tuesday, the 44-year-old Dutchman had been discharged from the hospital with a bad concussion.

De Jongh was a professional rider with Rabobank, Quick-Step and Sky during his career from 1995 to 2010. He was a DS at Sky starting in 2010, but left along with Sean Yates and Bobby Julich in 2012, Julich and De Jongh admitting that they used banned substances during their careers. De Jongh was DS with Tinkoff, before joining Trek in 2016.

Police are still investigating the crash.