Velonews appears to have confirmation from the Slippy team manager people.  Dean and Sutton also crashed, but with only bumps and bruises.  Apparently, Maggie was leading the Slippies up the outside, when Tosatto pulled off the front of the Boonen train and started drifting backward.  They collided.

I'd write a long piece of the miserable heap of crap that is the 2008-season after this news but it's so hard to type when your're lying in the fetalposition.

Ooof.  A big cloud on Slippy's otherwise hopeful sunrise to the season.  Hope he heals up fast.

French press -- without citations -- says he's off to London for surgery, and they put him back on the bike in about ten days, preserving his opportunity to prep for Paris-Roubaix:

''Magnus Backstedt (Slipstream-Chipotle) sera opéré prochainement à Londres par un spécialiste qui le connaît bien. Immobilisé pour une dizaine de jours, le Suédois devrait ensuite reprendre sa préparation pour Paris-Roubaix, qu'il avait remporté en 2004.''

Let's hope that this is right!

-Greg

My translation from his site:

"Part of the team crashed at 500m from the finish line. While there was 6 of us in the last stretch, everything was going perfectly, and I had just finished my work as 'shield' staying with Chris Sutton, Maggie, Julian & David Millar and when it was time to launch the sprint, it became rough  with the Quick Step team resulting with the team crashing at 70 km/h. Resulting in Maggie's breaking his collarbone and multiple contusions for Chris & Julian"

From the helicopter-shot it looks as if he had his head down, looking back to see where he had his teammate, when Weylandt dropped off to the right after finishing his pull at the front.

Bad luck. Hopefully it was a clean break, and can be 'put back together' easily.