Hecatomb of the favorites in the Dauphiné: the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, who wore the yellow jersey, threw in the towel before the start of the last stage, Sunday in Megève, the day after the abandonment of Egan Bernal. In 24 hours, the preparation race for the Tour, an ultra-mountainous hors d'oeuvre in the Alps, has lost the two main favorites of the Tour de France which will start on August 29 from Nice. And cut the cards of a completely crazy season.
Is Roglic's package a simple measure of caution like that of Bernal, for which the Ineos team mentioned a vague back pain? The Slovenian team's Jumbo did not specify the nature of his injuries, in the announcement of the retirement.
»READ ALSO - Tour of Lombardy: Fracture of the pelvis and lung affected for Evenepoel
Imperial so far both in the recent Tour de l'Ain and in the Dauphiné, Roglic was injured on Saturday in a fall near Ugine (Savoie) during the 4th stage which he was able to finish without wasting time on his direct opponents. But he was shot in several places on the body and was seen limping to get on the podium.
"The evolution of his injuries will determine the plans for the races to come," commented only his team Jumbo, who were in a strong position in the prospect of the Tour until Saturday morning. And the fall of another of his headliners, the Dutch Steven Kruijswijk.
Kruijswijk uncertain for Tour
The Dutch team spoke of a dislocation to a shoulder for Kruijswijk who spoke on Sunday. “We have to wait and see what the specialists say and how I will feel on the bike,” said the third in the 2019 Tour. “We will decide next week if I can run the Tour”.
Unlike Roglic, who fell alone on the flat without there being any particular danger on the road according to several testimonies collected by AFP, Kruijswijk fell at the same time as other runners, in particular the German Emanuel Buchmann, fourth in the 2019 Tour, and Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, another expected actor in the next Tour.
After the race, Pinot questioned the state of the road, very degraded, in the descent of the unprecedented pass of Plan Bois: “We recognized this road during training in July. We really thought they were going to do it again, that it was impossible for a bike race to pass there. It is practicable limit by mountain bike, then by road bike ... "
Sunday morning, race director Gilles Maignan admitted that the surface of this municipal road was not good. "In the Plan-Bois pass, we put the yellow flags to alert the runners and we made announcements on Radio-Tour," he told AFP, adding that the organizers had already modified the route at the start of the stage in order to "avoid the Col de l'Epine because it was limited".
Such a problem cannot occur on the Tour de France, except in exceptional circumstances. The Tour, which is organized by the same company (ASO), is the only major event for which the road is systematically cleaned until before the passage of the race.
Read also
- The terrible accident of a Malaysian pilot in Austria