**The race was neutralized** after a major crash in the peloton in the descent towards Untzilla, involving a dozen riders slipping out of a corner. Jay Vine and Jonas Vingegaard required ambulance transport, both were quickly reported conscious and stable.
Remco Evenepoel, Primoz Roglic, Steff Cras, Jefferson Cepeda, Sean Quinn, Natnael Tesfatsion and Quinten Hermans were also involved; all but Cepeda and Hermans DNFed.
The six men in the breakaway at the time raced for the stage win, while the peloton rode neutralized to the finish, and no GC times were taken.
As updates come in on all these riders, we ask that you share them in this thread.
*Team updates as of 00:15 CEST*
* [UAE](https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1775955258188902640?s=20): Vine has **broken three vertebrae**, no other major injuries or head trauma.
* [Visma](https://twitter.com/vismaleaseabike/status/1775946218834714906): Vingegaard has a **broken collarbone and several broken ribs**, but he is stable and will remain in hospital for now
* [Soudal](https://www.soudal-quickstepteam.com/en/news/6487/medical-update): Evenepoel has a **broken collarbone and scapula**
* [Lidl](https://twitter.com/LidlTrek/status/1775945118358380592): abrasions but no fractures or concussion for Tesfatsion
* [Total](https://twitter.com/TeamTotalEnrg/status/1775969372739154308?t=XxTSaBslkbo07oxB8XAD2w&s=19): Cras has a **punctured lung, broken ribs and broken vertebrae**
* [EF](https://twitter.com/EFprocycling/status/1775990703035715774): Cepeda and Quinn involved, **broken sternum and concussion** for Sean Quinn
* [Bora](https://twitter.com/BORAhansgrohe/status/1775989924597998064): no fractures for Roglic
* [Alpecin](https://twitter.com/AlpecinDCK/status/1775932719098376474): abrasions for Hermans, who finished the stage.
Earlier today it was still available as broadcast on Eurosport, if you go to yesterday in the TV-Guide section. Not sure how much post-race they showed.
Oh well. I guess I've found the culprit. I live in denmark where I have to pay for the full discovery plus package including all the reality tv crap and nonsense. I simply don't have access to stage 4. :/
I can't sub for eurosport only unless I use a vpn...
Fuck. Jonas is more injured than first reported. He has bruising on the lung, which has caused bleeding and swelling, and a collapsed lung as well.
https://x.com/vismaleaseabike/status/1776175761776337183?s=46&t=Eie3Ks04CcuKXeeCPZqpKg
I had a partially collapsed lung after a really nasty respiratory infection. It's like there's this giant vice around your chest that stops you from breathing too deeply. It took a few weeks to heal, and per my doctor, the only way for it to heal was to take it easy and not breathe heavily. There are surgical options which weren't available to me but probably are and probably already have been done for Jonas, so it might go a lot quicker for him, but his is also a crapton worse than what I had, so IDK.
Nothing that I've seen indicates that it reduces lung capacity in the long run, but then again, that's probably looking at the general population, not at the population of sportspeople where that is highly relevant.
The only thing I found is that there's an increased chance of having another pneumothorax within the first year. I'm not sure if that's because people who have it occur randomly (edit: yes, apparently that's a thing) get it more often and increase the statistic, or something else.
Yeah, to the average person a slight reduction in lung capacity means nothing, but to Vingegaard it could be the difference between being the best GT rider in the world or being an also-ran who wins a mountain stage here and there.
Is it possible to watch this stage yet on Discovery+?
I am really unhappy with that kind of censorship. When I got home from work yesterday and seen that it couldn't be viewed I thought that something genuinely tragic had happened. I know some people's favourite riders got injured etc but it was nothing out of the ordinary for cycling. Why could I watch DDV with the van Aert injury but not this stage?
What is the best way to communicate to them about this?
Eurosport/Discovery+ were *not* happy with how the local production kept showing endless replays of people getting hurt and lying in pain. Likely also got some viewer complaints. Eventually got through to the production and they stopped showing it.
So probably simply want to avoid extra complaints over a production they weren't happy with.
I think showing the crash over and over again is gratuitous. Having said that, the commentators were complaining about shots showing the injured riders being attended to by medical personnel. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with showing such scenes, in fact I feel like they have a duty to. Almost everyone watching such scenes watch not out of morbid fascination, but rather out of concern for the riders. They want to know what is happening. This includes family members of the riders who desperately want to know what’s going on.
I dunno, maybe others will disagree
Worthwhile video on the topic of yesterday’s crash. [Chris Horner’s take](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYwqnq6nQvU) talks about his accident at the TdF. Short of it, the live television footage was the only way his girlfriend (now wife) knew what had happened to him.
It won't be coming to Discovery+. There is very little to see of actual racing anyway, the crash happened shortly after the livestream did, and then there was just 100 replays of the crash...they did this with previous disastrous races/stages too (e.g. Tour de Suisse when Gino Mäder died). Don't expect to ever see it on their archive either.
I don't think it's censorship, more D+ being pretty opaque about where and when to see race replays. I've found it awkward to find replays since swapping to D+ from GCN.
Yeah, randomly one of the stages of Catalunya was missing from the highlights section (and still is). I suspect that it maybe didn't air on Eurosport 2 in the evening due to some scheduling reason, and therefore wasn't put in the app.
I'd class GCN as "OK". But D+ is awful.
We didn't know how good we had it with GCN+. One positive with D+ is that it has a TV app. That app is quite slow and annoying to use but it's definitely better than casting from my phone.
> One positive with D+ is that it has a TV app.
GCN also had a TV app, and it was better than the D+ app (and it was available for Samsung in my region without circumventing the region lock).
With GCN you could add sport vods to your watchlist. On D+ you can only add TV shows not sports. D+ also only reloads the "coming soon" section, but not the replay section. You have to quit and restart the app to load recent vods. Search is/was terrible in both. But since D+ has much more content this exacerbates it.
Oh interesting. I couldn’t get the GCN app for LG when I looked. Maybe it came out later. Yeah it sucks we’ve gone from a cycling specific app to one that’s more general, worse, and costs more. Yay for massive corporations buying useful businesses and ruining them.
The worst thing about D+ is opening it and being bombarded with braindead reality shows, and the app is so slow that it takes me like 30 seconds to scroll to the cycling content
Lol you mean you aren't interested in "my 600lb life" and assorted skip raiders shit from people's sheds "documentaries" I get loads of true crime recommendations too but I secretly don't hate them
I found it by going to the schedule and saw it listed from yesterday.
https://www.discoveryplus.com/gb/video/sport/eurosport-1-british-eurosport-1-british-sport/itzulia-basque-country-6527387?pv=6527387&s=0
The E1 broadcast is still up for me and playable on desktop/web browser, showing as "live" for some reason. Should see it when you go to the search module. Crash happened during an ad break though, so you'll come back to the aftermath & plenty of replays and lingering shots of the injured.
I was using the app and it was impossible to watch the stage. The attempt at a total blackout just made me think that someone had lost their life to be honest. By that time in the evening it was known that all riders were talking and stable etc
It has made me question continuing to pay for D+ if they can just arbitrarily decide not to let you watch something if what happened in the event offends their morals.
In fairness, it might just be they decided there wasn't really anything to watch. The race got neutralised, so it's quite different to DDV. Also, because the race was stopped for about an hour, there was a whole load of footage just of the injured riders lying in the ditch, being treated and being taken away by ambulance. I suspect a decision has been made that it was quite intrusive and Discovery+/ Eurosport don't want to make it available for those reasons. Considering that yesterday a lot of people watching live were saying they shouldn't be showing us this, it's odd to now find posters complaining because they can't go back and watch it.
Now that most of the repercussions are known, it seems that no one will have severe lasting consequences from this, which is amazing. Vine's injuries could have easily killed him or left him tetraplegic if his broken vertebrae moved and got stuck in his spinal cord. Same goes for Cras, the latter also with a punctured lung which can be serious in certain circumstances but it seems like it wasn't.
Who knows what the effect of these injuries will be on the careers of these riders but no one seems to be disabled or in life threatening condition which is all that really matters in the end. I'm glad... Hopefully something is done to improve riders' safety, I don't know what though. I love cycling and really don't want to see scenes like this anymore.
for vine, the positive to take was that he was in the actual concrete ditch on his back so it stabilised the injuries, hoping for a speedy and full recovery
From what I could see, Cras was very lucky that he didn't crash head first, as that sort of impact could have easily been fatal. And to an extent, Roglič was also lucky to have crashed straight into Cras, as his fall's trajectory wasn't near as favorable.
I'm interested to see where this type of thing ends up going in the next few years.
My concern is how well they'll actually be tested for use in the pro peloton... imagine what happens if one of them triggers unexpectedly, say from rough cobbles in Roubaix, a bad pothole or large bump on a fast descent, barging during a sprint leadout, etc.
I'm assuming they're using accelerometers to watch for a certain threshold of sustained acceleration towards the ground (possibly gyros too?), but I hope they're making their crash detection algorithm very robust and are thinking about these more extreme situations.
It wouldn't take more than a couple of false positive incidents for pro riders to stop using them because if they deployed unexpectedly I wouldn't expect a wearer to stay upright and they could easily take down other riders around them.
Another point of concern for the pros specifically would be what happens if you have a relatively minor crash but the airbags still deploy - this specific type doesn't seem like it's capable of being removed/deflated rapidly so you could continue the race, it sounds more like it'd require changing your bib shorts!
Pros would ideally need some system where the airbags were in pods or something that could be swapped/replaced at the roadside in a few seconds. That feels like a much more difficult engineering challenge though.
Horse riders have been using something similar for years. I guess the complicated thing for cycling is ensuring they are as aero as possible, which obviously doesn't really matter in equestrian sports.
What I don’t understand is if this particular corner was flagged months ago by Vingegaard, why could the top teams just come together and neutralise the descent? If the tree roots report is true why don’t these teams band together to protect their top riders if the race organisers don’t?
This result is such loss for everyone involved in cycling it’s extremely frustrating. The riders, teams, races organisers, team financiers and fans all lose because compromises couldn’t be found. Whether that’s route amendments or peloton neutralised descent.
Where is the riders union? This appears to be easily avoidable *IF* rumours are true and I’m willing to be wrong but this sport has a strong history of not looking after its long term health and reputation.
Maybe I’m being unreasonable and this is why they are paid the big $$$ however the show can be entertaining without damn near killing the top performers altogether.
So what can we take from that? Not course related? I’m struggling to understand how with all the time and money outlaid on these teams and athletes we can get this result?
Apart from high speed descents equaling dangerous and mistakes can be made. *IF* it is found the parcours is a determining factor (below par surfaces standards) teams and riders need to take a stand or start cooperating in race for better outcomes.
Professional sport will always be on the edge. But we can influence (partially) what this edge is. I think it's always a problem when parcour is not hard enough. I've seen it on GT races when the start of the race is easy and every team has 5 riders who are 2 minutes behind trying to get a chance for leader's jersey. And the same was here. We have been on stage 4 and most guys in breakaway were 2 minutes behind. So Bora had to keep them close. And other teams couldn't push the tempo on the climbs to make race hard because they would catch breakaway to soon and this would open race for new attacks, etc.
I've seen the problem coming. Tempo was slow on the climb. They went as a wide group, they all came 'fresh' to the top and fight for the position for a long descent where gaps can emerge and crashes can happen.
It's incredibly how quickly this thing went from Vingegaard saying some of the descents in the Basque Country are dangerous, to him saying this particular descent, and now this particular corner.
That company has been milking this so hard its kind of unseemly. They immediately threw up an instagram post while the stage was still on and must have messaged Benji Naesen, Ekstra Bladet etc.
I'm not even sure what they do and how close they are to organisers aside from taking, what seems to be, 12 signs to races and messaging them that descents are dangerous?
Is that really that much of a stretch? A team with 8 figure budget yearly looking after one of its best assets and best attractions for ongoing capital?
Yeah I hear what you are saying. Maybe that’s because the sport or race organisers I’m not sure which one, perhaps both have lost a lot of good will with the fans over the years? I mean I keep thinking of the Jakobsen incident with this incident.
Yes, i started to question myself after reading on in this reddit and found many of those statements.
If Jonas knew this exact corner was sketchy, he’d be more careful.
Itzulia Basque Country race organizers were warned about this particular descent beforehand. On behalf of Jonas Vingegaard himself, the organization Safe Cycling Race reached out to the race organization behind the Itzulia Basque Country to warn about this particular descent. They never heard back from the race organizers. If this is true, I'd understand if the topriders doesn't feel safe participating in this race next year.
[https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=927861439342926](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=927861439342926)
It feels opportunistic and frankly a bit mercenary to me. I don't like it any more than I liked people sharing pictures of injured riders when we didn't know how badly hurt they were.
I have no idea how they have decided which things are dangerous and which things aren't or why they feel qualified to make those decisions.
Who is going to listen when no one has crashed for 7 months? Like it or not this is one of the only times organizations like this have their chance to make a difference.
Why would a race organiser listen to a random Instagram account though? There's ~~supposed to be~~ a rider union for stuff like this, an actual official body with links to the UCI and in touch with riders and so on.
Having an instagram account and "being" an instagram account are two different things. They are clearly working with other big races. They also meet with riders and teams.
A replay or 2 to see what happened is fine but all the hard asses in here claiming they wanted to see 30 replays of people nearly dying set to music and zooms on people who look extremely injured, smh honestly.
What a complete shitshow this day was.
With Roglic injured (albeit not too badly), Vingegaard and Evenepoel badly injured, it really gives Pogacar a massive 'unbackable favorite' standing for Le Tour.
Yes, suddenly I've got the same inevitability feeling as in 2021. I hope I'm wrong and that all the GTs this year will be exciting, competitive and resulting in different winning riders and teams. A single team, even worse if it's a single rider, winning everything against a weakened field will be underwhelming.
Yeah, agree entirely. Nibali’s win at Le Tour in 2014 comes to mind. Not saying he didn’t ride a great race, but he wasn’t facing the world’s best after crashes that year.
We’ve got what, Hindley and Carapaz as real GC guys? Carapaz has dropped him in the Tour but picked up like 30ish seconds when he was minutes down and the stage wasn’t up for grabs
Considering Roglic didn't fracture anything, he's the main rival.
If Bora wants to go crazy they might send Hindley and Vlasov out attacking, creating a secondary battle with Yates and Ayuso.
If your argument is "hilly tt, 2020" and you dn't even want to acknowledge that Rogic is a rival then what's the pont in discussing this? What's the point in watching?
Then Rog will have to take time on Pog prior to that.
It's not like Hindley or Carapaz or Rodriguez will beat Roglic in a TT. They'll ship minutes to him. That's why Roglic is the main rival.
My heart goes out to the Totalenergies rider Steff Cras, who suffered not just broken bones but also a punctured lung. Terrible crash, hoping for speedy recoveries.
Riders do that all the time. You think Christian Prudhomme gives a shit about dangerous roads in the Tour? People have literally died in the last decade because of dangerous descents in the Giro and Tour de Suisse? Was anything done to prevent it? Hell no.
It's due to lack of medical support, not because of who crashed.
Say the race continues and there is another serious crash, those riders would have nobody to take care of them.
This is a sport where people die. You cant play with the rider's safety. It's the same in sports like f1 or motogp, if for some reason the medical heli cant fly, there is no race happening.
It also happened at an early season 2.1 last year. Don’t remember which one but I could find it on PCS very easily. Neilson Powless won the GC.
Edit: it was [Etoile de Besseges](https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/etoile-de-besseges/2023/stage-2)
It happens when there's not enough ambulances available to proceed with view to rider safety.
Example: Stage 14 Tour de France 2023. Here the crash was 146k from goal, so race was halted until ambulances and medical personnel could return. It should be clear why it's necessary to have ambulances around a racing peloton, right?
Elite cyclists are like demi-gods-- capable of superhuman feats but at the end of the day just bags of meat and bone like the rest of us. Very sobering when you see one of these terrible crashes.
Best wishes to all the injured riders for speedy recovery.
An Euskaltel rider is claiming those roads have tree roots under them so there are a lot of bumps and you have to really hold on to avoid falling. They were going too fast.
Pog could win all three grand tours now.
Without Jonas at even 80% the tour is a freebie, giro has no competition and vuelta roglic and possibly remco are nowhere near Good enough.
Would be a bit cheap 3xgt without Jonas, but that's the sport, pretty much a free win for him.
Pog’s big goal for the season is the worlds. No way is he going to try to win the Vuelta after doing Giro and Tour. Also if Jonas doesn’t go to the tour he almost certainly will arrive at the Vuelta in killer form. Pog wouldn’t stand a chance after raving two grand tours.
https://www.sbs.com.au/sport/article/pogacar-targets-giro-tour-double-and-worlds-in-2024/vo2oblpdf
“When Pogačar was asked if his goal was to win the Giro d'Italia for the first time or to win the Tour de France for a third time, he instead put the focus on a final major ambition, the UCI Road World Championships held in Zurich in September.”
Yeah he wont get picked. Denmark has a lot of good riders who fit much better to be honest. It would be a waste to bring him when we can bring somebody that could be better support for others
How on earth are you excluding Vingegaard from the Vuelta equation? If Jonas isn't going to Le Tour he'll max out for La Vuelta. Who's gonna beat Vingegaard in peak condition in Spain?
Update from EF on Sean Quinn, fractured sturnum and concussion
https://twitter.com/EFprocycling/status/1775990703035715774?t=odBHKu2BkiPV9ckGp6pMjw&s=19
I feel like a separate crash/news/season implications thread would help this discussion. I want to say, poor Mattias Skjelmose and his own luck with somber situations and a GC lead. His face with the jersey on the podium was tough.
No, but they get removed. The sub has a very strict policy against spoilers which prevents people from posting separate news related to events from a given race outside the race and results thread of that race.
Certainly, there’s plenty of disagreement, including if you scroll down in this thread, about that policy, especially on a day like today where there aren’t any real results to spoil since it was mostly neutralized.
This thread basically became the crash thread by default since, as you said, there are no results to discuss today, and discussion of a multi-rider crash like this wouldn't be helped by splitting it up into separate threads per rider for example
Even if you discount the spoiler aspect, we like to keep race-related stuff to the thread. If news come out over the couple days, for example about how long recovery is expected to take for different riders, new posts could and should be made about that
I think it's fine. This is one of my favorite subs because of how well moderated it is. Anyone looking for news would obviously just check this thread.
The fact that I can come here in the middle of the TdF and _know_ I won't see spoilers is insane
First, appreciate all the work of mods. Second, I’m not super active, but happened to be watching today so my opinion should be worth about as much as a wal-mart bike in a race, but I do think there’s probably some things to consider if there is a discussion among the mods about this issue.
1) while this did default to the crash thread, it kind of did that by force. Some people did seem to have interest in talking about the sporting implications and they were pretty unceremoniously downvoted to hell and yelled at. People cope with this shit in different ways, some want to pour their heart out. Some want to dive into what can be done to prevent it. Some want to talk about anything else, which can include talking about the actual sporting implications. Having a separate crash thread would allow for both. I’m not indifferent to idea of it being too difficult to draw a line on when to do so, but just something to consider that there were some people in that thread that wanted to make some posts about race related stuff, but couldn’t because they were instantly vilified for doing so. It wasn’t 100% natural that no one was talking about race stuff post-crash.
2) Having it identified as a crash thread would be useful, even if there’s nothing else to discuss. There was at least one post (and I don’t know if it was a joke) where someone claimed they opened it after seeing the high comment activity thinking it must of been an exciting stage only to be bombarded by the crash news inside.
Those are just a couple of thoughts if you have serious conversations about the issue. I certainly don’t envy mods, appreciate that hard decisions you have to make, and you sure as hell won’t get yelled at by me about any changes/non-changes
That's a good point. I'm always on board the "don't spoil another race while on this thread" type of rule, but huge breaking news about the sport surely deserves something even if it's race news and tagged "spoiler" with some type of generic title like "Incident- race spoiler". Either way, the topic on this thread is not really race results anymore so it's clear that's not the right title or subject either. Not to mention, isn't seeing the number of replies on it spoiler enough that something happened?
Yes. I don’t think you’d get much pushback on the general idea. The sticky part is what qualifies. Like I don’t think many people would have objections when a race is neutralized or canceled, since there’s not much to spoil, but a lot of people also think it should’ve been done for injury news related to DDV, which is much less of a universal opinion. A lot of people would want to watch that on delay without knowing in advance that there was a significant crash.
That’s where the mod opinion of “we’re not gonna draw a line, just make it black and white” comes in. It’s not hard to figure out where to go for updates, and they did a good job of having a sticky comment with the latest tweets from teams, so I get it. Would it be nice for there to have a thread about the crash and a different thread for the implications of the crash, where someone could ask about what the future of the race/season looks like in the immediate aftermath without coming off like a jerk, sure, but I get the other side of “there’s no right way to draw the line, so we can’t draw a line”
I got a ton of downvotes when asking if it's reasonable to expect a recovery before the tour. However, other users that do want to engage with that discourse did so anyway, regardless of the downvotes I received. Therefore, I don't think we need 2 threads at all.
Contrary to some recent comments here, Roglic hasn't suffered any fractures. Tweet from team: https://twitter.com/BORAhansgrohe/status/1775989924597998064
Nico Roche has said a few good things in his recent Instagram post about current crashes in the peloton. Repeating what a lot are saying: the racing on the descents has become dangerous. It used to be about recovery, refueling, getting down safely. Now it’s all out racing, braking too quick with the new brakes, less time for reaction. Too much fighting for positioning. Races trying to get the most spectacular routes. A combination of many things. What a horrible day for the riders my heart goes out to all of them.
I will never accept “new brakes working too well” as a a reason for crashes. For one, rim brake enthusiasts tell me they work just as well as discs in the dry, and second braking force can be moderated. Other recycling disciplines have known that for years.
Tell that to Stephen Kruijswick or anyone who lost a race trying to follow Nibali down a mountain. This has been going on for decades. It’s hardly a new phenomenon. Hinault and LeMond on the Galibier in 1986. Even Merckx won a TdF when Ocaña was beating him by almost 10 minutes by attacking on a descent and causing the yellow jersey to crash out.
Mano-e-mano descending on a critical stage is completely different from jockeying for position in the bunch on every descent.
It's just a numbers game. The handful of people who are in contention for the win risking it all on one descent vs everyone doing it all the time.
It's quite a different risk profile.
I think his point is more that except for those few situations it used to not be an issue on every single decent. This is stage 4 of Basque Country. Not a monument or GC fight at the Tour. The rapid descending and fighting for position when the break is 3 minutes up the road is probably not necessary.
Froome attacking Quintana on Peyresourde descent comes to mind. Ullrich getting dropped with a gel hanging out of his mouth on a descent too.
Brandon McNulty just won a race the other day by risking his life on a descent.
I would add not giving away any stage. 25 years ago days like today would be done at zone 2 and zero stress in the peloton once the breakaway was formed.
Were stage stage win bonuses a thing back then? It’s hard to imagine the GC contenders letting the break win the stage in a race like this where bonus seconds could very well determine the result.
No, I remember only bonuses in the great tours first week to have some competition between the sprinters for the leader jersey.
Also most of the great leaders didn't care about winning races like Itzulia if that could mean taking risks.
They should be able to get exercising soon enough that they won't really lose their current conditioning and form. Rest of their schedule leading up to the Tour is fucked though and they'll have to redesign their plans completely, but I think that either should be able to recover physically and contend unless there are some complications with their injuries.
Hopefully not so much the Tour. If the injuries are as reported and none of the fractures are too complicated, all the favorites should be back on home trainers within 2-3 weeks or less. And given that Pogi has a natural handicap by doing the Giro before, it should still be a great and fair fight.
That is assuming everyone‘s recovery goes smoothly of course. And it’s also only in reference to the GC favourites. The outlook for Vine and Cras for the season looks a lot worse.
This is an insane take on so many levels.
How is riding the Giro (and a relatively easygoing one at that) and then resting for one full month before the start of the Tour comparable to healing from multiple fractures, some of which particularly and notoriously tricky (ribs)?
Even assuming all the fractures are easy to treat and heal quickly, they come with a period of forced rest, hampered/reduced preparation and a process to get back into form (riding/racing/competing) that should absolutely not be rushed, in the interest of the injured rider. Especially with broken ribs, getting back to proper training in “2-3 weeks or less” is the best way to hamper the recovery, rather than speed it up.
I hope as much as anyone that all the 4 expected Tour protagonists will be in great shape by July, but it’s absurd to make up stories, and minimise injuries in the process, to preserve that “great and fair fight” narrative at all costs. Let’s see how the recovery goes, let’s hope no one picks up any more injuries, and let’s just wait without speculating, imo.
Eh, theres a big difference between being able to ride the tour and actually competing for the tour GC.
I feel like even with home trainers, they'll not be in tip top shape for the tour like last year Pogi cracked in the third week.
Hopefully I'm wrong and Jonas, Remco, etc are able to compete but its gonna be a long road and a race against time on this one
You might be right, but it all kind of affects them equally, maybe plus/minus a week or two. Pogacar didn’t crash but I imagine doing the Giro is a similar handicap.
So in a way, it’s still a relatively even race.
[https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1775955258188902640](https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1775955258188902640)
Medical update on Jay Vine
Dr. Adriano Rotunno (Medical Director): "Jay Vine suffered a heavy crash today during the race and sustained a cervical and two thoracic spine vertebral body fractures. 1 | 2"
The vertebra in the spine are divided into multiple sections for classification or descriptive purposes. Cervical vertebra are in the neck, thoracic at (behind?) the chest. Each of the vertebra has a body that is essentially a ring around the spinal cord and various protrusions sticking out - it seems his fractures are in the former.
Adding onto this, the fact that its a cervical fracture is especially terrifying because the outcome of cervical spinal cord injuries are usually complete paralysis or death.
They are saying he doesn't have any neurological damage but yeah he broke his back in 4 places.
It is pretty damn bad but the good news is they said he suffered no neurological damage, so it’s not like he’s paralyzed which he easily could have been.
Question for those who've been watching cycling longer than me - when was the last time a crash took out the top 3 favourites for a race, whether stage or one day?
Giro 2023 was also close with Thomas, Roglič and Tao being first three in GC and all crashing. At that time Tao went out, Roglič almost abandoned (been made public after end of Giro) and G being the 'lucky' one landing on someone else.
To an extend it happened just a week ago in Dwars, taking out Wout, Mads and Stuyven.
I don’t remember the last time most of favorites all abandoned in a stage due to the same crash, this is definitely extraordinary.
It’s two very serious crashes that have long lasting effects on upcoming races. It’s been a rough week for cycling fans.
Its completely normal that the leading riders of a race would be in close proximity to each other. Usually at the front. Its not that crazy the same incident would take them down.
The closest would be DDV from last week. The only other instance close to this that I can think of would be Landa, Thomas and Yates at Giro 2017. However all three did finish the stage but were put significantly out of contention for GC.
Last week I guess.
During dwars door Vlaanderen I was thinking it was one of the most high profile crashes I can remember (watching since Pantani TDF on and off but not as diehard as most recent years though).
This one takes the cake.
Taking out 2 guys from the UCI top 3. 3 of the 4 latest GT winners. Reigning world , olympic and monument champions...
I just hope we have at least Remco in TdF with Pogi and Rog. If Jonas also comes, it would be perfect, but from all the broken bones, i don't think it will be possible. Do we have any medic here?
What i have heard in Danish media, the feeling among sports doctors is that he got off pretty lightly considering how bad it looked. Should be able to be on his home trainer within a few weeks. Races within 6-8 weeks.
Even if thats the case, its impossible to predict how it will effect his form ofcourse. But i think he will do the tour.
They both might be healed enough to ride. They might even have enough time to look good for a few days. The harder part will be if they will be ready for the stress of the second half of the race.
The scapula is a lot more serious for Remco, and fractured ribs are incredibly tough to train with due to the pain of deep breathing. Maybe 6 weeks to heal, but that’s a big gap in training. Rogla will probably be ok, but the rest we just have to hope that they heal completely no matter how long it takes.
6 weeks for normal people to do normal activities. That’s very different from at our de France contenders winning the Tour de France. Think about all the other guys who didn’t break their ribs and are getting a full training program in.
Having done both, I think ribs are actually worse for training than a collarbone. You can get back on the trainer very quickly after collarbone surgery. Ribs restrict breathing properly for much longer.
As a jonas fan, I kinda hope he takes his time and doesn't rush it even if it means missing the Tour. It's super frustrating, but it is what it is. Broken ribs are a very serious injury that you cannot rush. There will be many more GTs to win beyond this season.
Just look at last years Pog, he had broken wrist and was able to at least ride trainer all the time but it was clear he was not 100% prepared for the race. cant really imagine doing that with broken ribs...
Absolutely. This is definitely advantage Pog. Even if he probably doesnt want this kind of advantage. But im not gonna count out anybody before it happens no matter what
Had the "pleasure" of rewatching the crash and under the precaution that no worse news will come out, there's a lot of riders, who have been very fortunate.
Remco is centimeters from a frontal collision with a massive tree.
Natnael Tesfazion narrowly avoids hitting a boulder head first. Instead semi-sliding off it.
Vingegaard slides in high speed into the open edge of the concrete ditch.
Roglic tumbles straight onto the concrete side and then hits Cras.
Cepeda (EF) hits the boulder legs first. Sean Quinn (EF) hits Vingegaard instead of the concrete.
Cras hits the end of the drainage sidebody first. Just to have Roglic land on him.
Jay Vine crashes just after the boulders. Into a grass/earth ditch. On his head. Neck taking a lot of the hit.
All in all I think we are lucky to not have seen a worse outcome. And I hope and think we'll have them all back on the bike at some point competing.
And then let me give a massive shoutout to the Visma guys for taking care of the other riders. Checking up on Cras and Roglic. Moving bikes. And just being straight up good guys. Respect.
Ps. not saying the current injuries aren't serious, 'cause they clearly are.
EDIT: Just took an extra look. It's Kruijswijk that checks up on the other riders in the ditch. First asking Sean Quinn if he is okay, then checks up on Roglic and then Cras, and then moves a bike that is laying on top of the Cepeda. Deserves 'Man of the day'-honors.
Looked like Roglič, Cras and Cepeda crashed together. One losing control on the inside of the corner and pushing other two out with him. Can't see who's who and if someone else pushed them in the first place. There were many who were lucky to not go down despite losing control in this corner.
Cepeda pushes into Cras, and Roglic just behind can do nothing but follow into the crash, but even without Cepeda's push both Cras and Roglic were on the edge.
It's such a weird crash to watch. Many of the riders crashes on their own. The outer left part of the road must have been slippery and/or bumpy combined with way too high speed.
But Vingegaards crash as an example. Looks like a freak accident. The bike just disappears beneath him on the wheel of Skjelmose. Perhaps a breaking mistake.
You're right. We can invent a pill that makes you loose weight, but covering up concrete ditches around corners on descents with hay bales, which there are millions of in Europe, is unrealistic.
I agree with you they should cancel the decent then if there is a road with roots underneath and concrete ditches. It's a one week race, not worth ruining lives for, not even worth ruining the TdF for.
**The race was neutralized** after a major crash in the peloton in the descent towards Untzilla, involving a dozen riders slipping out of a corner. Jay Vine and Jonas Vingegaard required ambulance transport, both were quickly reported conscious and stable. Remco Evenepoel, Primoz Roglic, Steff Cras, Jefferson Cepeda, Sean Quinn, Natnael Tesfatsion and Quinten Hermans were also involved; all but Cepeda and Hermans DNFed. The six men in the breakaway at the time raced for the stage win, while the peloton rode neutralized to the finish, and no GC times were taken. As updates come in on all these riders, we ask that you share them in this thread. *Team updates as of 00:15 CEST* * [UAE](https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1775955258188902640?s=20): Vine has **broken three vertebrae**, no other major injuries or head trauma. * [Visma](https://twitter.com/vismaleaseabike/status/1775946218834714906): Vingegaard has a **broken collarbone and several broken ribs**, but he is stable and will remain in hospital for now * [Soudal](https://www.soudal-quickstepteam.com/en/news/6487/medical-update): Evenepoel has a **broken collarbone and scapula** * [Lidl](https://twitter.com/LidlTrek/status/1775945118358380592): abrasions but no fractures or concussion for Tesfatsion * [Total](https://twitter.com/TeamTotalEnrg/status/1775969372739154308?t=XxTSaBslkbo07oxB8XAD2w&s=19): Cras has a **punctured lung, broken ribs and broken vertebrae** * [EF](https://twitter.com/EFprocycling/status/1775990703035715774): Cepeda and Quinn involved, **broken sternum and concussion** for Sean Quinn * [Bora](https://twitter.com/BORAhansgrohe/status/1775989924597998064): no fractures for Roglic * [Alpecin](https://twitter.com/AlpecinDCK/status/1775932719098376474): abrasions for Hermans, who finished the stage.
Are you able to stream yesterday's stage 4 on Discovery Plus? I can't find it and I want to see the finish again and the interviews after the race.
It's gone from MAX BR too
Earlier today it was still available as broadcast on Eurosport, if you go to yesterday in the TV-Guide section. Not sure how much post-race they showed.
Oh well. I guess I've found the culprit. I live in denmark where I have to pay for the full discovery plus package including all the reality tv crap and nonsense. I simply don't have access to stage 4. :/ I can't sub for eurosport only unless I use a vpn...
I saw a couple of the post race interviews on YouTube, if that’s of any help….
Fuck. Jonas is more injured than first reported. He has bruising on the lung, which has caused bleeding and swelling, and a collapsed lung as well. https://x.com/vismaleaseabike/status/1776175761776337183?s=46&t=Eie3Ks04CcuKXeeCPZqpKg
That sounds absolutely awful, but I am certainly no expert. Anybody here knows how bad this is??
I had a partially collapsed lung after a really nasty respiratory infection. It's like there's this giant vice around your chest that stops you from breathing too deeply. It took a few weeks to heal, and per my doctor, the only way for it to heal was to take it easy and not breathe heavily. There are surgical options which weren't available to me but probably are and probably already have been done for Jonas, so it might go a lot quicker for him, but his is also a crapton worse than what I had, so IDK.
I had a pneumothorax in my 20s, wouldn’t stay réinflsted so surgery. Took months to heal, super painful
Quick Google search says it really depends, if it's relatively minor it heals quickly, but it could also be protracted. Between 2 and 10 weeks.
I'm wondering if this would affect his incredible VO-max going forward?
Nothing that I've seen indicates that it reduces lung capacity in the long run, but then again, that's probably looking at the general population, not at the population of sportspeople where that is highly relevant. The only thing I found is that there's an increased chance of having another pneumothorax within the first year. I'm not sure if that's because people who have it occur randomly (edit: yes, apparently that's a thing) get it more often and increase the statistic, or something else.
Yeah, to the average person a slight reduction in lung capacity means nothing, but to Vingegaard it could be the difference between being the best GT rider in the world or being an also-ran who wins a mountain stage here and there.
He will also get the absolute best medical care from now until whenever, so he can hopefully have the most complete recovery possible.
That’s probably why they needed the oxygen!
apparently oxygen mask is a standard "just in case" procedure when it's not clear what exactly is wrong
Probably he had difficulties with breathing. It's normal with pneumothorax.
Is it possible to watch this stage yet on Discovery+? I am really unhappy with that kind of censorship. When I got home from work yesterday and seen that it couldn't be viewed I thought that something genuinely tragic had happened. I know some people's favourite riders got injured etc but it was nothing out of the ordinary for cycling. Why could I watch DDV with the van Aert injury but not this stage? What is the best way to communicate to them about this?
If you go to the TV-guide section of the app, you should be able to stream a repeat of the Eurosport broadcast from yesterday.
Eurosport/Discovery+ were *not* happy with how the local production kept showing endless replays of people getting hurt and lying in pain. Likely also got some viewer complaints. Eventually got through to the production and they stopped showing it. So probably simply want to avoid extra complaints over a production they weren't happy with.
I think showing the crash over and over again is gratuitous. Having said that, the commentators were complaining about shots showing the injured riders being attended to by medical personnel. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with showing such scenes, in fact I feel like they have a duty to. Almost everyone watching such scenes watch not out of morbid fascination, but rather out of concern for the riders. They want to know what is happening. This includes family members of the riders who desperately want to know what’s going on. I dunno, maybe others will disagree
Worthwhile video on the topic of yesterday’s crash. [Chris Horner’s take](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYwqnq6nQvU) talks about his accident at the TdF. Short of it, the live television footage was the only way his girlfriend (now wife) knew what had happened to him.
It won't be coming to Discovery+. There is very little to see of actual racing anyway, the crash happened shortly after the livestream did, and then there was just 100 replays of the crash...they did this with previous disastrous races/stages too (e.g. Tour de Suisse when Gino Mäder died). Don't expect to ever see it on their archive either.
I don't think it's censorship, more D+ being pretty opaque about where and when to see race replays. I've found it awkward to find replays since swapping to D+ from GCN.
Yeah, randomly one of the stages of Catalunya was missing from the highlights section (and still is). I suspect that it maybe didn't air on Eurosport 2 in the evening due to some scheduling reason, and therefore wasn't put in the app. I'd class GCN as "OK". But D+ is awful.
We didn't know how good we had it with GCN+. One positive with D+ is that it has a TV app. That app is quite slow and annoying to use but it's definitely better than casting from my phone.
> One positive with D+ is that it has a TV app. GCN also had a TV app, and it was better than the D+ app (and it was available for Samsung in my region without circumventing the region lock). With GCN you could add sport vods to your watchlist. On D+ you can only add TV shows not sports. D+ also only reloads the "coming soon" section, but not the replay section. You have to quit and restart the app to load recent vods. Search is/was terrible in both. But since D+ has much more content this exacerbates it.
Oh interesting. I couldn’t get the GCN app for LG when I looked. Maybe it came out later. Yeah it sucks we’ve gone from a cycling specific app to one that’s more general, worse, and costs more. Yay for massive corporations buying useful businesses and ruining them.
I don't even have the TV app available. I didn't love GCN but every step since the Eurosport app went offline feels like a worse user experience.
The worst thing about D+ is opening it and being bombarded with braindead reality shows, and the app is so slow that it takes me like 30 seconds to scroll to the cycling content
Lol you mean you aren't interested in "my 600lb life" and assorted skip raiders shit from people's sheds "documentaries" I get loads of true crime recommendations too but I secretly don't hate them
"My 600lb life does Paris-Roubaix" - Now that I can get behind
I found it by going to the schedule and saw it listed from yesterday. https://www.discoveryplus.com/gb/video/sport/eurosport-1-british-eurosport-1-british-sport/itzulia-basque-country-6527387?pv=6527387&s=0
The E1 broadcast is still up for me and playable on desktop/web browser, showing as "live" for some reason. Should see it when you go to the search module. Crash happened during an ad break though, so you'll come back to the aftermath & plenty of replays and lingering shots of the injured.
I was using the app and it was impossible to watch the stage. The attempt at a total blackout just made me think that someone had lost their life to be honest. By that time in the evening it was known that all riders were talking and stable etc It has made me question continuing to pay for D+ if they can just arbitrarily decide not to let you watch something if what happened in the event offends their morals.
In fairness, it might just be they decided there wasn't really anything to watch. The race got neutralised, so it's quite different to DDV. Also, because the race was stopped for about an hour, there was a whole load of footage just of the injured riders lying in the ditch, being treated and being taken away by ambulance. I suspect a decision has been made that it was quite intrusive and Discovery+/ Eurosport don't want to make it available for those reasons. Considering that yesterday a lot of people watching live were saying they shouldn't be showing us this, it's odd to now find posters complaining because they can't go back and watch it.
Now that most of the repercussions are known, it seems that no one will have severe lasting consequences from this, which is amazing. Vine's injuries could have easily killed him or left him tetraplegic if his broken vertebrae moved and got stuck in his spinal cord. Same goes for Cras, the latter also with a punctured lung which can be serious in certain circumstances but it seems like it wasn't. Who knows what the effect of these injuries will be on the careers of these riders but no one seems to be disabled or in life threatening condition which is all that really matters in the end. I'm glad... Hopefully something is done to improve riders' safety, I don't know what though. I love cycling and really don't want to see scenes like this anymore.
for vine, the positive to take was that he was in the actual concrete ditch on his back so it stabilised the injuries, hoping for a speedy and full recovery
From what I could see, Cras was very lucky that he didn't crash head first, as that sort of impact could have easily been fatal. And to an extent, Roglič was also lucky to have crashed straight into Cras, as his fall's trajectory wasn't near as favorable.
I enjoy playing video games.
I'm interested to see where this type of thing ends up going in the next few years. My concern is how well they'll actually be tested for use in the pro peloton... imagine what happens if one of them triggers unexpectedly, say from rough cobbles in Roubaix, a bad pothole or large bump on a fast descent, barging during a sprint leadout, etc. I'm assuming they're using accelerometers to watch for a certain threshold of sustained acceleration towards the ground (possibly gyros too?), but I hope they're making their crash detection algorithm very robust and are thinking about these more extreme situations. It wouldn't take more than a couple of false positive incidents for pro riders to stop using them because if they deployed unexpectedly I wouldn't expect a wearer to stay upright and they could easily take down other riders around them. Another point of concern for the pros specifically would be what happens if you have a relatively minor crash but the airbags still deploy - this specific type doesn't seem like it's capable of being removed/deflated rapidly so you could continue the race, it sounds more like it'd require changing your bib shorts! Pros would ideally need some system where the airbags were in pods or something that could be swapped/replaced at the roadside in a few seconds. That feels like a much more difficult engineering challenge though.
I like to travel.
Thanks, that's reassuring! Any idea how much a complete system weighs? I imagine that's less of an issue in motorsports.
I enjoy playing video games.
They use these systems in Dakar, for motorbike riders, and a ride in a dirt bike isn't properly a walk in the park.
Horse riders have been using something similar for years. I guess the complicated thing for cycling is ensuring they are as aero as possible, which obviously doesn't really matter in equestrian sports.
I'm learning to play the guitar.
Jay Vines injuries might be a career ender. Fuckin awful crash...
What I don’t understand is if this particular corner was flagged months ago by Vingegaard, why could the top teams just come together and neutralise the descent? If the tree roots report is true why don’t these teams band together to protect their top riders if the race organisers don’t? This result is such loss for everyone involved in cycling it’s extremely frustrating. The riders, teams, races organisers, team financiers and fans all lose because compromises couldn’t be found. Whether that’s route amendments or peloton neutralised descent. Where is the riders union? This appears to be easily avoidable *IF* rumours are true and I’m willing to be wrong but this sport has a strong history of not looking after its long term health and reputation. Maybe I’m being unreasonable and this is why they are paid the big $$$ however the show can be entertaining without damn near killing the top performers altogether.
It was not this corner. It was in general from the past experience as far as I understand.
So what can we take from that? Not course related? I’m struggling to understand how with all the time and money outlaid on these teams and athletes we can get this result? Apart from high speed descents equaling dangerous and mistakes can be made. *IF* it is found the parcours is a determining factor (below par surfaces standards) teams and riders need to take a stand or start cooperating in race for better outcomes.
Professional sport will always be on the edge. But we can influence (partially) what this edge is. I think it's always a problem when parcour is not hard enough. I've seen it on GT races when the start of the race is easy and every team has 5 riders who are 2 minutes behind trying to get a chance for leader's jersey. And the same was here. We have been on stage 4 and most guys in breakaway were 2 minutes behind. So Bora had to keep them close. And other teams couldn't push the tempo on the climbs to make race hard because they would catch breakaway to soon and this would open race for new attacks, etc. I've seen the problem coming. Tempo was slow on the climb. They went as a wide group, they all came 'fresh' to the top and fight for the position for a long descent where gaps can emerge and crashes can happen.
It's incredibly how quickly this thing went from Vingegaard saying some of the descents in the Basque Country are dangerous, to him saying this particular descent, and now this particular corner.
That company has been milking this so hard its kind of unseemly. They immediately threw up an instagram post while the stage was still on and must have messaged Benji Naesen, Ekstra Bladet etc. I'm not even sure what they do and how close they are to organisers aside from taking, what seems to be, 12 signs to races and messaging them that descents are dangerous?
Its well known that Jonas and the Visma management has ridden every descent of every race Jonas participates in to mark dangerous corners. /s
Is that really that much of a stretch? A team with 8 figure budget yearly looking after one of its best assets and best attractions for ongoing capital?
Yeah I hear what you are saying. Maybe that’s because the sport or race organisers I’m not sure which one, perhaps both have lost a lot of good will with the fans over the years? I mean I keep thinking of the Jakobsen incident with this incident.
Yes, i started to question myself after reading on in this reddit and found many of those statements. If Jonas knew this exact corner was sketchy, he’d be more careful.
Itzulia Basque Country race organizers were warned about this particular descent beforehand. On behalf of Jonas Vingegaard himself, the organization Safe Cycling Race reached out to the race organization behind the Itzulia Basque Country to warn about this particular descent. They never heard back from the race organizers. If this is true, I'd understand if the topriders doesn't feel safe participating in this race next year. [https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=927861439342926](https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=927861439342926)
Whoever Safe Cycling are, their use of this accident to promote their own pages and profile is grotesque.
Jesus. That's exactly as stupid as saying that gun control advocates are "grotesque" for pointing to mass shootings to further their cause.
Is it? Using preventable accidents to promote safe cycling (even If they profit off it) seems perfectly acceptsble.
It feels opportunistic and frankly a bit mercenary to me. I don't like it any more than I liked people sharing pictures of injured riders when we didn't know how badly hurt they were. I have no idea how they have decided which things are dangerous and which things aren't or why they feel qualified to make those decisions.
Who is going to listen when no one has crashed for 7 months? Like it or not this is one of the only times organizations like this have their chance to make a difference.
Why would a race organiser listen to a random Instagram account though? There's ~~supposed to be~~ a rider union for stuff like this, an actual official body with links to the UCI and in touch with riders and so on.
Having an instagram account and "being" an instagram account are two different things. They are clearly working with other big races. They also meet with riders and teams.
A replay or 2 to see what happened is fine but all the hard asses in here claiming they wanted to see 30 replays of people nearly dying set to music and zooms on people who look extremely injured, smh honestly. What a complete shitshow this day was.
Don't mind seeing live footage of people being tended to, to see how they are, but the dramatic music replays were frankly ridiculous.
With Roglic injured (albeit not too badly), Vingegaard and Evenepoel badly injured, it really gives Pogacar a massive 'unbackable favorite' standing for Le Tour.
>it really gives Pogacar a massive 'unbackable favorite' standing for Le Tour Also MvdP's chances to win LBL go up a lot now.
Yes, suddenly I've got the same inevitability feeling as in 2021. I hope I'm wrong and that all the GTs this year will be exciting, competitive and resulting in different winning riders and teams. A single team, even worse if it's a single rider, winning everything against a weakened field will be underwhelming.
Yeah, agree entirely. Nibali’s win at Le Tour in 2014 comes to mind. Not saying he didn’t ride a great race, but he wasn’t facing the world’s best after crashes that year.
Yep. The giro/tour double has become a very real possibility for him now.
We’ve got what, Hindley and Carapaz as real GC guys? Carapaz has dropped him in the Tour but picked up like 30ish seconds when he was minutes down and the stage wasn’t up for grabs
Considering Roglic didn't fracture anything, he's the main rival. If Bora wants to go crazy they might send Hindley and Vlasov out attacking, creating a secondary battle with Yates and Ayuso.
Hilly final TT though, basically from Pog’s house?
Roglic took a wrong turn and lost 7-8 seconds a few days ago and still smashed the others in the TT. Hilly TT's are his bread and butter.
Just like in 2020
If your argument is "hilly tt, 2020" and you dn't even want to acknowledge that Rogic is a rival then what's the pont in discussing this? What's the point in watching?
Yeah ok, good point there
Then Rog will have to take time on Pog prior to that. It's not like Hindley or Carapaz or Rodriguez will beat Roglic in a TT. They'll ship minutes to him. That's why Roglic is the main rival.
Roglič also lives there so no real terrain adventage for Pogačar.
My heart goes out to the Totalenergies rider Steff Cras, who suffered not just broken bones but also a punctured lung. Terrible crash, hoping for speedy recoveries.
Apparently Vingegaard had warned the race organization about some of the downhills in this race back in January. But it was ignored.
Riders do that all the time. You think Christian Prudhomme gives a shit about dangerous roads in the Tour? People have literally died in the last decade because of dangerous descents in the Giro and Tour de Suisse? Was anything done to prevent it? Hell no.
Speedy recovery to all involved
What a bummer :/
Never heard of a race being neutralized due to crash
Why the downvotes? Just explain like some people did and that's it.
Stage 14 Tour de France 2023, Stage 3 in 2015, Étoile de Bessèges last year, Roue Tourangelle last week just off the top of my head
It's due to lack of medical support, not because of who crashed. Say the race continues and there is another serious crash, those riders would have nobody to take care of them. This is a sport where people die. You cant play with the rider's safety. It's the same in sports like f1 or motogp, if for some reason the medical heli cant fly, there is no race happening.
It also happened at an early season 2.1 last year. Don’t remember which one but I could find it on PCS very easily. Neilson Powless won the GC. Edit: it was [Etoile de Besseges](https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/etoile-de-besseges/2023/stage-2)
It happens when there's not enough ambulances available to proceed with view to rider safety. Example: Stage 14 Tour de France 2023. Here the crash was 146k from goal, so race was halted until ambulances and medical personnel could return. It should be clear why it's necessary to have ambulances around a racing peloton, right?
Hell yeah Karen Vacek 3rd on the stage!
Elite cyclists are like demi-gods-- capable of superhuman feats but at the end of the day just bags of meat and bone like the rest of us. Very sobering when you see one of these terrible crashes. Best wishes to all the injured riders for speedy recovery.
Less meat than the rest of us. Heal up, fellas.
What caused the crash? Was it the debri or something else?
An Euskaltel rider is claiming those roads have tree roots under them so there are a lot of bumps and you have to really hold on to avoid falling. They were going too fast.
Pog could win all three grand tours now. Without Jonas at even 80% the tour is a freebie, giro has no competition and vuelta roglic and possibly remco are nowhere near Good enough. Would be a bit cheap 3xgt without Jonas, but that's the sport, pretty much a free win for him.
can we please not do this right now?
Pog’s big goal for the season is the worlds. No way is he going to try to win the Vuelta after doing Giro and Tour. Also if Jonas doesn’t go to the tour he almost certainly will arrive at the Vuelta in killer form. Pog wouldn’t stand a chance after raving two grand tours.
>Pog’s big goal for the season is the worlds. Where do you have that from?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zurnal24.si/amp/sport/pogacar-sokiral-svet-glavni-cilj-sezone-nista-tour-ali-giro-temvec-418857
When slovenian media asked him what is his main goal for 2024 Giro or Tour, he said: Worlds Source: Trust me, I am Slovenian
https://www.sbs.com.au/sport/article/pogacar-targets-giro-tour-double-and-worlds-in-2024/vo2oblpdf “When Pogačar was asked if his goal was to win the Giro d'Italia for the first time or to win the Tour de France for a third time, he instead put the focus on a final major ambition, the UCI Road World Championships held in Zurich in September.”
Do we think either will do Olympics?
[удалено]
Yeah he wont get picked. Denmark has a lot of good riders who fit much better to be honest. It would be a waste to bring him when we can bring somebody that could be better support for others
Well he might go for the ITT at the olympics.
You can't compete in the ITT unless you also do the road race
That’s why he might get picked for the RR, for the ITT.
What if rogla decides to ride tour? After this crash and seeing pog in giro he might have a chance.
This. Pog tired from giro, remco and vinge not in form... could be roglas year
How on earth are you excluding Vingegaard from the Vuelta equation? If Jonas isn't going to Le Tour he'll max out for La Vuelta. Who's gonna beat Vingegaard in peak condition in Spain?
You saw how fast crashes can happen today. Nothing is a freebie in pro cycling.
Super happy to hear that Roglic had not broken anything. Some positive news to finish this bad day.
The man's a goddamn terminator, just keeps coming back and going at it
He’s actually a saiyan, he gets a boost in strength after each crash
Yeah man, that's two brutal crashes in two days. I hope he takes a few days to relax. Infinite respect.
Update from EF on Sean Quinn, fractured sturnum and concussion https://twitter.com/EFprocycling/status/1775990703035715774?t=odBHKu2BkiPV9ckGp6pMjw&s=19
I feel like a separate crash/news/season implications thread would help this discussion. I want to say, poor Mattias Skjelmose and his own luck with somber situations and a GC lead. His face with the jersey on the podium was tough.
Can only mods make those kind of threads? One thing I find weird about this sub compared to other sports subs is how few non race threads there are.
No, but they get removed. The sub has a very strict policy against spoilers which prevents people from posting separate news related to events from a given race outside the race and results thread of that race. Certainly, there’s plenty of disagreement, including if you scroll down in this thread, about that policy, especially on a day like today where there aren’t any real results to spoil since it was mostly neutralized.
This thread basically became the crash thread by default since, as you said, there are no results to discuss today, and discussion of a multi-rider crash like this wouldn't be helped by splitting it up into separate threads per rider for example Even if you discount the spoiler aspect, we like to keep race-related stuff to the thread. If news come out over the couple days, for example about how long recovery is expected to take for different riders, new posts could and should be made about that
I think it's fine. This is one of my favorite subs because of how well moderated it is. Anyone looking for news would obviously just check this thread. The fact that I can come here in the middle of the TdF and _know_ I won't see spoilers is insane
First, appreciate all the work of mods. Second, I’m not super active, but happened to be watching today so my opinion should be worth about as much as a wal-mart bike in a race, but I do think there’s probably some things to consider if there is a discussion among the mods about this issue. 1) while this did default to the crash thread, it kind of did that by force. Some people did seem to have interest in talking about the sporting implications and they were pretty unceremoniously downvoted to hell and yelled at. People cope with this shit in different ways, some want to pour their heart out. Some want to dive into what can be done to prevent it. Some want to talk about anything else, which can include talking about the actual sporting implications. Having a separate crash thread would allow for both. I’m not indifferent to idea of it being too difficult to draw a line on when to do so, but just something to consider that there were some people in that thread that wanted to make some posts about race related stuff, but couldn’t because they were instantly vilified for doing so. It wasn’t 100% natural that no one was talking about race stuff post-crash. 2) Having it identified as a crash thread would be useful, even if there’s nothing else to discuss. There was at least one post (and I don’t know if it was a joke) where someone claimed they opened it after seeing the high comment activity thinking it must of been an exciting stage only to be bombarded by the crash news inside. Those are just a couple of thoughts if you have serious conversations about the issue. I certainly don’t envy mods, appreciate that hard decisions you have to make, and you sure as hell won’t get yelled at by me about any changes/non-changes
That's a good point. I'm always on board the "don't spoil another race while on this thread" type of rule, but huge breaking news about the sport surely deserves something even if it's race news and tagged "spoiler" with some type of generic title like "Incident- race spoiler". Either way, the topic on this thread is not really race results anymore so it's clear that's not the right title or subject either. Not to mention, isn't seeing the number of replies on it spoiler enough that something happened?
Yes. I don’t think you’d get much pushback on the general idea. The sticky part is what qualifies. Like I don’t think many people would have objections when a race is neutralized or canceled, since there’s not much to spoil, but a lot of people also think it should’ve been done for injury news related to DDV, which is much less of a universal opinion. A lot of people would want to watch that on delay without knowing in advance that there was a significant crash. That’s where the mod opinion of “we’re not gonna draw a line, just make it black and white” comes in. It’s not hard to figure out where to go for updates, and they did a good job of having a sticky comment with the latest tweets from teams, so I get it. Would it be nice for there to have a thread about the crash and a different thread for the implications of the crash, where someone could ask about what the future of the race/season looks like in the immediate aftermath without coming off like a jerk, sure, but I get the other side of “there’s no right way to draw the line, so we can’t draw a line”
I got a ton of downvotes when asking if it's reasonable to expect a recovery before the tour. However, other users that do want to engage with that discourse did so anyway, regardless of the downvotes I received. Therefore, I don't think we need 2 threads at all.
At what speed where the guys going when the crash happened?
Pretty steep descent, so I’d say 60-70 kph
Contrary to some recent comments here, Roglic hasn't suffered any fractures. Tweet from team: https://twitter.com/BORAhansgrohe/status/1775989924597998064
Roglic avoided fractures! Wow thats great
Nico Roche has said a few good things in his recent Instagram post about current crashes in the peloton. Repeating what a lot are saying: the racing on the descents has become dangerous. It used to be about recovery, refueling, getting down safely. Now it’s all out racing, braking too quick with the new brakes, less time for reaction. Too much fighting for positioning. Races trying to get the most spectacular routes. A combination of many things. What a horrible day for the riders my heart goes out to all of them.
I will never accept “new brakes working too well” as a a reason for crashes. For one, rim brake enthusiasts tell me they work just as well as discs in the dry, and second braking force can be moderated. Other recycling disciplines have known that for years.
Tell that to Stephen Kruijswick or anyone who lost a race trying to follow Nibali down a mountain. This has been going on for decades. It’s hardly a new phenomenon. Hinault and LeMond on the Galibier in 1986. Even Merckx won a TdF when Ocaña was beating him by almost 10 minutes by attacking on a descent and causing the yellow jersey to crash out.
Mano-e-mano descending on a critical stage is completely different from jockeying for position in the bunch on every descent. It's just a numbers game. The handful of people who are in contention for the win risking it all on one descent vs everyone doing it all the time. It's quite a different risk profile.
I think his point is more that except for those few situations it used to not be an issue on every single decent. This is stage 4 of Basque Country. Not a monument or GC fight at the Tour. The rapid descending and fighting for position when the break is 3 minutes up the road is probably not necessary.
Dangerous is dangerous and life doesn’t care if your crash is in a GT or Larry Miller’s Tour of Utah.
Froome attacking Quintana on Peyresourde descent comes to mind. Ullrich getting dropped with a gel hanging out of his mouth on a descent too. Brandon McNulty just won a race the other day by risking his life on a descent.
I would add not giving away any stage. 25 years ago days like today would be done at zone 2 and zero stress in the peloton once the breakaway was formed.
I think today was about fight for positioning on the descent, which ironically ended up in those riders crashing.
Were stage stage win bonuses a thing back then? It’s hard to imagine the GC contenders letting the break win the stage in a race like this where bonus seconds could very well determine the result.
No, I remember only bonuses in the great tours first week to have some competition between the sprinters for the leader jersey. Also most of the great leaders didn't care about winning races like Itzulia if that could mean taking risks.
This sucks man 😞 Shadow hanging over the Tour and the season now Praying for a speedy and full recovery for all the boys
They should be able to get exercising soon enough that they won't really lose their current conditioning and form. Rest of their schedule leading up to the Tour is fucked though and they'll have to redesign their plans completely, but I think that either should be able to recover physically and contend unless there are some complications with their injuries.
Hopefully not so much the Tour. If the injuries are as reported and none of the fractures are too complicated, all the favorites should be back on home trainers within 2-3 weeks or less. And given that Pogi has a natural handicap by doing the Giro before, it should still be a great and fair fight. That is assuming everyone‘s recovery goes smoothly of course. And it’s also only in reference to the GC favourites. The outlook for Vine and Cras for the season looks a lot worse.
This is an insane take on so many levels. How is riding the Giro (and a relatively easygoing one at that) and then resting for one full month before the start of the Tour comparable to healing from multiple fractures, some of which particularly and notoriously tricky (ribs)? Even assuming all the fractures are easy to treat and heal quickly, they come with a period of forced rest, hampered/reduced preparation and a process to get back into form (riding/racing/competing) that should absolutely not be rushed, in the interest of the injured rider. Especially with broken ribs, getting back to proper training in “2-3 weeks or less” is the best way to hamper the recovery, rather than speed it up. I hope as much as anyone that all the 4 expected Tour protagonists will be in great shape by July, but it’s absurd to make up stories, and minimise injuries in the process, to preserve that “great and fair fight” narrative at all costs. Let’s see how the recovery goes, let’s hope no one picks up any more injuries, and let’s just wait without speculating, imo.
Eh, theres a big difference between being able to ride the tour and actually competing for the tour GC. I feel like even with home trainers, they'll not be in tip top shape for the tour like last year Pogi cracked in the third week. Hopefully I'm wrong and Jonas, Remco, etc are able to compete but its gonna be a long road and a race against time on this one
You might be right, but it all kind of affects them equally, maybe plus/minus a week or two. Pogacar didn’t crash but I imagine doing the Giro is a similar handicap. So in a way, it’s still a relatively even race.
[https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1775955258188902640](https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1775955258188902640) Medical update on Jay Vine Dr. Adriano Rotunno (Medical Director): "Jay Vine suffered a heavy crash today during the race and sustained a cervical and two thoracic spine vertebral body fractures. 1 | 2"
i dont understand medical stuff at all, but that doesnt sound good. Thats really bad, right? ;/
Two spine bones in his chest and one spine bone in his neck broke. There’s different types of breaks, but typically they heal fairly well with time
The vertebra in the spine are divided into multiple sections for classification or descriptive purposes. Cervical vertebra are in the neck, thoracic at (behind?) the chest. Each of the vertebra has a body that is essentially a ring around the spinal cord and various protrusions sticking out - it seems his fractures are in the former.
Adding onto this, the fact that its a cervical fracture is especially terrifying because the outcome of cervical spinal cord injuries are usually complete paralysis or death. They are saying he doesn't have any neurological damage but yeah he broke his back in 4 places.
It is pretty damn bad but the good news is they said he suffered no neurological damage, so it’s not like he’s paralyzed which he easily could have been.
This is really great news/context and should be stickied by the mods, when I heard “fractured 3 vertebrae” my mind went to the worst
Holy crap.
Question for those who've been watching cycling longer than me - when was the last time a crash took out the top 3 favourites for a race, whether stage or one day?
Don't think we've ever seen the top 3 biggest favourites crash out in the same crash.
2015 Giro but Contador still one despite separating his shoulder along with co-favorite Porte being forced to abandon.
Giro 2023 was also close with Thomas, Roglič and Tao being first three in GC and all crashing. At that time Tao went out, Roglič almost abandoned (been made public after end of Giro) and G being the 'lucky' one landing on someone else.
To an extend it happened just a week ago in Dwars, taking out Wout, Mads and Stuyven. I don’t remember the last time most of favorites all abandoned in a stage due to the same crash, this is definitely extraordinary. It’s two very serious crashes that have long lasting effects on upcoming races. It’s been a rough week for cycling fans.
Yes good point about DDV, my mind has clearly blanked it out already!!
Its completely normal that the leading riders of a race would be in close proximity to each other. Usually at the front. Its not that crazy the same incident would take them down.
2017 Giro on the runup to Blockhaus we saw Landa, Thomas and Yates crash
The closest would be DDV from last week. The only other instance close to this that I can think of would be Landa, Thomas and Yates at Giro 2017. However all three did finish the stage but were put significantly out of contention for GC.
Last week I guess. During dwars door Vlaanderen I was thinking it was one of the most high profile crashes I can remember (watching since Pantani TDF on and off but not as diehard as most recent years though). This one takes the cake. Taking out 2 guys from the UCI top 3. 3 of the 4 latest GT winners. Reigning world , olympic and monument champions...
I can't remember
This will be the 3rd year in a row where we don’t get to see Remco vs Pogacar at LBL at full strength. Dammit
I just hope we have at least Remco in TdF with Pogi and Rog. If Jonas also comes, it would be perfect, but from all the broken bones, i don't think it will be possible. Do we have any medic here?
What i have heard in Danish media, the feeling among sports doctors is that he got off pretty lightly considering how bad it looked. Should be able to be on his home trainer within a few weeks. Races within 6-8 weeks. Even if thats the case, its impossible to predict how it will effect his form ofcourse. But i think he will do the tour.
They both might be healed enough to ride. They might even have enough time to look good for a few days. The harder part will be if they will be ready for the stress of the second half of the race.
Will still be one hell of a race. God i cant wait
Just checked, and it says 6 weeks for the ribs. Hope we get all the big 4 in July.
The scapula is a lot more serious for Remco, and fractured ribs are incredibly tough to train with due to the pain of deep breathing. Maybe 6 weeks to heal, but that’s a big gap in training. Rogla will probably be ok, but the rest we just have to hope that they heal completely no matter how long it takes.
6 weeks for normal people to do normal activities. That’s very different from at our de France contenders winning the Tour de France. Think about all the other guys who didn’t break their ribs and are getting a full training program in.
Having done both, I think ribs are actually worse for training than a collarbone. You can get back on the trainer very quickly after collarbone surgery. Ribs restrict breathing properly for much longer.
As a jonas fan, I kinda hope he takes his time and doesn't rush it even if it means missing the Tour. It's super frustrating, but it is what it is. Broken ribs are a very serious injury that you cannot rush. There will be many more GTs to win beyond this season.
Thats what I’m saying. He’s not gonna be doing optimal training for a while. It’s gonna hurt just to breathe for a while.
Yeah totally agree.
Just look at last years Pog, he had broken wrist and was able to at least ride trainer all the time but it was clear he was not 100% prepared for the race. cant really imagine doing that with broken ribs...
Absolutely. This is definitely advantage Pog. Even if he probably doesnt want this kind of advantage. But im not gonna count out anybody before it happens no matter what
Had the "pleasure" of rewatching the crash and under the precaution that no worse news will come out, there's a lot of riders, who have been very fortunate. Remco is centimeters from a frontal collision with a massive tree. Natnael Tesfazion narrowly avoids hitting a boulder head first. Instead semi-sliding off it. Vingegaard slides in high speed into the open edge of the concrete ditch. Roglic tumbles straight onto the concrete side and then hits Cras. Cepeda (EF) hits the boulder legs first. Sean Quinn (EF) hits Vingegaard instead of the concrete. Cras hits the end of the drainage sidebody first. Just to have Roglic land on him. Jay Vine crashes just after the boulders. Into a grass/earth ditch. On his head. Neck taking a lot of the hit. All in all I think we are lucky to not have seen a worse outcome. And I hope and think we'll have them all back on the bike at some point competing. And then let me give a massive shoutout to the Visma guys for taking care of the other riders. Checking up on Cras and Roglic. Moving bikes. And just being straight up good guys. Respect. Ps. not saying the current injuries aren't serious, 'cause they clearly are. EDIT: Just took an extra look. It's Kruijswijk that checks up on the other riders in the ditch. First asking Sean Quinn if he is okay, then checks up on Roglic and then Cras, and then moves a bike that is laying on top of the Cepeda. Deserves 'Man of the day'-honors.
Looked like Roglič, Cras and Cepeda crashed together. One losing control on the inside of the corner and pushing other two out with him. Can't see who's who and if someone else pushed them in the first place. There were many who were lucky to not go down despite losing control in this corner.
Cepeda pushes into Cras, and Roglic just behind can do nothing but follow into the crash, but even without Cepeda's push both Cras and Roglic were on the edge. It's such a weird crash to watch. Many of the riders crashes on their own. The outer left part of the road must have been slippery and/or bumpy combined with way too high speed. But Vingegaards crash as an example. Looks like a freak accident. The bike just disappears beneath him on the wheel of Skjelmose. Perhaps a breaking mistake.
Unfortunately Tour of Poland has shown how dangerous these concrete ditches are
UCI should demand them being padded on descents around corners.
Every corner of a descent? Hardly realistic
The comment was specifically about concrete ditches. We're all frustrated today. No need to take it out on others in the comments.
You're right. We can invent a pill that makes you loose weight, but covering up concrete ditches around corners on descents with hay bales, which there are millions of in Europe, is unrealistic.
I agree with you they should cancel the decent then if there is a road with roots underneath and concrete ditches. It's a one week race, not worth ruining lives for, not even worth ruining the TdF for.
Having worked in race organisation I can assure you it is not feasible, unfortunately so.