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Video: Rider doored by race doctor's car in Tour of Romandie

Jesper Hansen knocked off as car door opens in his path

Paging Alanis Morisette: Isn't it ironic when the race staff who are supposed to look after you if you crash put you on your arse in a bike race?

That's what happened to poor Jasper Hansen of Tinkoff-Saxo in stage 2 of the Tour of Romandie yesterday.

The race's medical car had stopped so staff could attend to Orica-GreenEdge's Svein Tuft who had fallen heavily while carrying water bottles from his team car to his team-mates.

Hansen had also come down in the crash, but was unharmed until he tried to continue and the passenger in the race doctor's car opened a door in his path.

Both Hansen and Tuft eventually got back on their bikes and finished the stage.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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10 comments

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ChrisB200SX | 8 years ago
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It was the passenger rather than driver... simply no excuse for doing that!

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Airzound | 8 years ago
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Where there's blame, there's a claim!

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Bigfoz | 8 years ago
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Medical car folks were bored and wanted to drum up some business?

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Kim | 8 years ago
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Should have been wearing high viz and a helmet... Oh hang on...

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skull-collector... | 8 years ago
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Should have been wearing high vis and a helmet. Serves him good for cycling in the middle of a busy road. /s

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cookdn | 8 years ago
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To think Jesper Hansen was wearing hi-viz and still got doored. That's sadly normal rather than ironic.

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farrell | 8 years ago
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Was the doctor driving in cleats?

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Kadinkski | 8 years ago
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This is the video I saw, its better than the one in the article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seOOdwuerC0

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dotdash | 8 years ago
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Right Mr Shimano driver, we have got you a new car and you are driving the doctor.

Remember to be careful!

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Kadinkski | 8 years ago
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Nasty. The reaction and body language of the doddering fool that opened his door is typical of when this happens in real life....

"Where'd you come from? What the hell are you doing riding into my door?"

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