Australia loses another Tour contender
Australian cyclist Simon Gerrans has announced that his Tour de France is over due to a broken left arm. In Sunday’s eighth stage of the Tour, the Team Sky contender was involved in three crashes which have left him to rest in Monaco after a miserable Tour experience.
"I hasn't been a good week for me, a Tour de France I would prefer to forget," he said. "These things come in threes. When it rains it pours – I've got soaked in this race."
Battered, bruised and broken
Gerrans left the French Alps with a broken radius bone, a black eye, and a face full of skin abrasions, the second Australian casualty of the 2010 Tour after the crashes in the first stage left Adam Hansen with a fractured collarbone. Gerrans and Sky teammates Bradley Wiggins and Michael Barry were all involved in the crash but managed to get out with superficial wounds.
"It was ridiculously slippery," said Team Sky chief Dave Brailsford. "They were coming down the last couple of descents and there were guys in the trees. It was carnage in the true sense of the word. Sixty guys must have crashed in different places."
But Hansen was left in agony. The HTC-Columbia rider, his team sporting Aussie Mick Rogers and British green jersey contender Mark Cavendish, crashed early in the stage from Rotterdam to Brussels, but battled stubbornly to the finish line despite his injury. The team later announced that Hansen could not start the second stage.
"It was one of those freak crashes. I briefly saw something on the road before I hit it and my bike skid(ded) across the field. Most riders managed to avoid me but at the last second I hit the back wheel of another rider and went down."
"He is an extremely valuable rider and we will definitely miss him at this Tour de France,” said team owner Bob Stapleton. “For now his health is the most important thing and we want to give him the best care for a quick recovery."
Thrice unlucky
Gerrans’ relatively harmless fall in the second stage was followed by a face-first landing into the cobblestones the following day, but it was his third fall in the eighth stage that took him out for good.
"I was hoping to go a bit longer," he said. "It wasn't quite planned to leave the Tour on the first rest day. There was a crash quite early into the stage where Cadel (Evans) fell and quite a few guys touched down. It was only 7km into the race. It looked like someone wiped out right at the front and I was riding towards the front of the bunch trying to cover a few of the early breakaways. Guys fell straight in front of me, either side of me, I had nowhere to go.”
Gerrans' departure leaves nine Australians in the race, headed by yellow jersey holder Evans and Mick Rogers, who is 10th overall.
"It took me quite a few kilometres to get back in contact with the bunch. I did what I had to do, just survived the stage. I got to the finish and had it checked out. I had it scanned this morning. I knew straight away that I hurt it. I really suffered through yesterday's stage in the hope that it wasn't too bad and the fact I wasn't going to have an easy day today and be right to start tomorrow. But a broken arm is a broken arm, you can't do much about it."
Evans and Gerrans, both from Victoria, were both involved in the spill 7km into the stage. Despite the crash, Evans ultimately won the eighth stage and took the yellow jersey, but went in for extensive physiotherapy to treat his left arm after the stage. The timing of the rest day couldn’t be better for Evans, who took advantage of the chance to spend time with the physiotherapist in order to recover from his injuries before the ninth stage.
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