Juan Ayuso might have stood atop the podium at Itzulia Basque Country as the overall winner last week, but the biggest winner was possibly not the Spaniard, but his UAE Team Emirates teammate Tadej Pogačar.
The 25-year-old wasn’t present in the north of Spain, and so dodged the misfortune and injuries that befell his rivals for the Tour de France. It’s counterintuitive that avoiding racing makes you more of a favourite, but at Itzulia, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) were all impacted to different extents by the horror crash on stage four.
Evenepoel broke his collarbone and shoulder blade, while Roglič escaped serious injury, just receiving a lot of bruises and road rash, but it was Vingegaard who looked the worst off. The Dane remained motionless on the floor for a significant amount of time; it later transpired that he had broken his collarbone, several ribs, and suffered a collapsed lung. His plans for a defence of his Tour crown remain uncertain as a result.
It takes around six to eight weeks to bounce back from broken ribs and collarbone, but it isn’t so much the time away from racing, as the time away from training which could cause more concerns for three of the favourites for the Tour. In a video message, Evenepoel said his “long term goals”, ie the Tour, would not be impacted, but hard earned training gains could well be lost through the layoff.
Vingegaard was described as getting “a little bit better every day” by Richard Plugge, his team boss, at the weekend, but it will take a couple of weeks for the true extent of his injuries and the impact of them to be realised.
On Tuesday, Visma-Lease a Bike reported that he had had a successful operation on his collarbone. However: "He will now spend the next few weeks recovering. It is not yet clear how long this will take. He is doing well and expresses his gratitude to everyone for their kind words over the past few days."
Pogačar then, the fourth member of this quad of Tour de France favourites, is the one who moves into the virtual lead, three months out from the race actually taking place. Of course, he has to race the Giro d’Italia in between now and then, in which anything could happen, but if he stays upright, it might be swinging towards the Slovenian. Perhaps, though, this is the year for someone out of the blue to win, the first surprise winner in years. Nothing can be predicted.
Bike racing is often decided as much by fortune as by design. This is nothing new. How often have we been excited about a potential Tour for the ages, only for something to come up? The expectation is often better than the reality. That could well be the case with the 2024 Tour de France, which has been shaped already.
Visma-Lease a Bike, especially, cannot catch a break at the moment. The dominant squad of 2023 lost Wout van Aert to a crash ahead of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, and now have Vingegaard out of action for an unclear amount of time.
Away from the impact on the Tour, the crash was a reminder that something needs to be done to lessen the outcome of these racing incidents. As well as Vingegaard, Evenepoel, and Roglič’s injuries, Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) suffered a cervical and two thoracic spine vertebral body fractures, while Steff Cras (TotalEnergies) also came away with a collapsed lung, broken ribs and a two fractured vertebrae. These kinds of injuries should not be normal.
Gino Mäder’s crash and subsequent death last June forced the UCI to create the SafeR project, which looked to study crashes and other parts of races to make them less dangerous. Because, as Vuelta stage winner Nicholas Roche said after the Itzulia crash, “it's not normal that riders should risk their life”.
Crashes are a part of cycling, and crashes mean injuries. However, they shouldn’t be life threatening, or so regular. Riders will not slow down, organisers will not want to be constrained in their route choices, and the money isn’t there to put crash protection on every descent. Action is needed. The lottery cannot go on.
This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.
If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com.
