Simon Gerrans of Team Sky, Katusha’s team leader Vladimir Karpets and Footon-Servetto’s Fabio Felline, the youngest rider in this year’s race, have all pulled out of the Tour de France through injury.
Each of the withdrawals was announced yesterday on the first rest day of this year’s Tour de France at Morzine-Avoriaz, with Gerrans and Felline both involved in the crash early on in Saturday’s stage that also involved Cadel Evans and Lance Armstrong..
Gerrans suffered a broken arm in that incident but battled through to the finish in Morzine-Avoriaz and his loss will be a blow to Team Sky as Bradley Wiggins looks to get his Tour de France back on track after slipping almost four minutes behind overall leader Evans.
The Australian, who had also been checked over in hospital following a crash on Stage 2 that left him with a black eye and stitches, told the Team Sky website: “Obviously I'm very disappointed - I've had the sort of Tour de France you'd rather forget.”
He continued: "I'm absolutely gutted that I'm not going to be able to help the other guys over the next two weeks."
Katusha announced that hospital tests had revealed that Karpets had been riding with a broken bone in his palm that he sustained when he crashed during Monday’s Stage 2 and that he would leave the race to concentrate on preparing for the Vuelta.
In a statement on the team website, Karpets said that he was disappointed that the injury, which meams he can’t put any pressure on his hand, had forced him to abandon the race for which he had spent months preparing.
Meanwhile Felline, at 20 years of age the youngest rider in the race, has withdrawn as a result of contusions received during the crash, although reports in France suggest that Footon-Servetto had alreasy been planning to withdraw him after the Tour’s first week.
Following the latest withdrawals, 14 of the 197 riders who started the Prologue in Rotterdam have now left the race, and the full list is shown below.
Simon Gerrans - Team Sky
Vladimir Karpets - Katusha
Fabio Felline - Footon-Servetto
Juan José Oroz - Euskaltel-Euskadi
Stijn Vandenbergh - Katusha
Amets Txurruka - Euskaltel-Euskadi
Niki Terprstra - Milram
David Le Lay - AG2R-La Mondiale
Christian Vandevelde - Garmin-Transitions
Frank Schleck - Team Saxo Bank
Adam Hansen - HTC-Columbia
Mickael Delage - Omega Pharma-Lotto
Manuel Cardoso - Footon-Servetto
Mathias Frank - BMC Racing
Totally this. Go back 100-120 years and say "you know old chap the time will come when everyone has got one of these infernal cars" and perhaps...
I assumed they were in a chain gang so looking straight at them she may not have seen a large group.
Isn't that what Chump says in court?
In Australia, two Melbourne suburbs with car-hating notoriously Green Left councils have 18 mph (30 kph) speed limits, essentially forcing cars to...
More likely they're just responding to a very skewed version of the incident presented to them by Royal Parks at face value.
We had to seriously brake to avoid a car running a red light this weekend; we were also in a car, following a green light....
I guess the FLock Light works best if you have paler legs for it to light up. Mine are actually blue (like any true Scotsman's legs they only turn...
Helmet zealots' lack of logic and knowledge, as evidenced by your post I responded to, exasperate me I'm afraid.
Absolutely agree: "You'll be sure to make a statement with these brightly-coloured road shoes from Fizik" - the statement being "I have no taste...
Well done to Nick for opening up and sharing his story. Much respect.