The first week of the Tour de France is usually filled with crashes, as we saw today's carnage having the first abandons of the three week stage race. This is just a
list of the people the doctors attended to, not all the people hurt or affected by all the crashing:
Crash at 70km: Yury Krivtsov (Lampre-ISD), cuts to knee, elbow, hip
Dimitry Fofonov (Astana), cuts to left knee
Janez Brajkovic (Astana), cuts to left elbow and hip
Crash at 140km: Kanstantsin Sivtsou (Sky), broken left tibula
Dominik Nerz (Liquigas), cuts and scrapes
Pablo Urtasun (Euskaltel), queasiness
Crash at 168km: JJ Rojas (Movistar), fractured left clavicle
Gianpaolo Caruso (Katusha), blow to chest
Crash at 300m to go: Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil-DCM), cuts to left knee
We know that Sivtsou and Rojas were the first abandons, but there might be more over night, as several other riders were taken to local hospitals for x-rays. What's bad about the crashing, if you keep on with the Tour, is there is no time to rest and heal, there's always another 100 mile race to do the next day. On Stage 1, several riders went down and injured their left arms trying to break their falls.
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| Luis Leon Sanchez sprained his wrist. |
| Photo: Graham Watson | www.grahamwatson.com |
Wearing a brace seems okay before you start riding, but it is not comfortable at all while trying to handle a bike surrounded by 190 other guys, besides feeling every single bump in the road. Tony Martin opted for one hand during most of Stage 2, suffering from a broken wrist.
But what if you're in the breakaway, you've got a dislocated pinky, and the final climb is on steep cobblestones? If you're Anthony Roux of FDJ, you suck it up, and climb one-handed.
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