Two More Casualties in this Year's Tour
At the starting line of the 12th Stage of the 2010 Tour de France, only 177 riders checked in, 20 less than in the prologue, and one less than estimates had predicted. The missing rider was Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin, who quit the Tour citing fatigue. Less than 200km later, the Tour suffered its second loss of the day, American Tyler Farrar.
Farrar finished third in the chaotic sprint finish of Thursday’s Stage 11. He may have taken the stage if it weren’t for the loss of his lead-out man Robbie Hunter to an injury in Stage 10, or if Mark Renshaw hadn’t risked the dangerous maneuvers that got him kicked out of the Tour, while also setting Mark Cavendish up to win the stage.
“He’s a hard nut,” said team director Matt White. “We sat down last night and analyzed his sprint, and we were looking forward to the next one. But unfortunately it’s not going to be.”
Julian Dean was serving as Farrar’s lead-out man in the final sprint when Renshaw head-butted him so he could jump ahead and block Farrar’s sprint inside the barriers. Dean now remains the team’s best opportunity for the few remaining sprint stages, but with only 6 team members left, he may not have the support necessary to win. Farrar is the third loss after Hunter, and the podium contender Christian Vande Velde, who crashed out in the first week.
“Every day after Tyler sprints he’s in a world of pain. He was in a lot of pain today and got dropped on the first climb,” said White. “In the heat of the moment you don’t feel the pain you’re doing to the wrist. But the next day you pay for it. Eventually he just couldn’t hang on."
The lead sprinter of Team Garmin was involved in the major crash of the Tour’s second stage, suffering a fracture in his risk. Farrar has managed to ride on through the pain until the difficult 12th Stage was too much and he rode out of the Tour 50km before the finish line.
“You’ve got to look at it positively,” said White. “He wants a big shot at the world championships in Australia. The course suits him and now he’s got to recover from it, and prepare for the Vuelta a España, for sure.”
Samuel Dumoulin missed the Stage 12 check-in after agreeing with his team management that he has lost the energy to contend. When the peloton battled in the last 15km of Stage 11, the diminutive French rider was left behind, and he took that as a sign that he couldn’t keep up with the Tour.
"I was hoping to get better after the Alps, but it's the opposite, I haven't recovered, I've got no strength," he explained.
So far this season, Dumoulin has won the third most stage wins internationally, behind only André Greipel and Alberto Contador, and won the Etoile de Bessèges. He was ranked as one of the best-performing cyclists of the year.
"Maybe I made a mistake by taking a total break in April and May," said Dumoulin, after a total 70 days of racing before his break. "Crashes have affected me as well at the Dauphiné and in the descent of [Côte de] Stockeu in stage two of the Tour. It's a succession of details that has made me so tired. It's hard to accept to have to stay passive at the Tour - I came here with higher ambitions.”
Dumoulin, who won the third stage of the 2009 Tour de France, said that his biggest regret is that his inclusion in the Tour meant that another cyclist who may have performed better didn’t have the opportunity to be chosen by his team.
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