First the good news.
Chris Froome is well at the start of the second stage of the Tour this Sunday between Perros-Guirec and Mûr-de-Bretagne.
The Briton, caught in the second fall, the most severe, which disrupted the end of the first stage between Brest and Landerneau on Saturday, delivered the information himself, on his Twitter account.
“Ready for round 2,” he wrote.
The runner of Israel Start Up-Nation, quadruple winner of the event, is injured in a hip and thorax.
“I braked as hard as I could, but I hit the back of the guy who fell right in front of me,” explained Froome this Sunday morning.
I hit quite hard with my right leg, and more generally my entire right side.
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Another seriously affected rider, the Swiss Marc Hirschi, lieutenant of Tadej Pogacar (UEA Team Emirates), will also take the start.
Super-combative and stage winner in the 2020 Tour, Hirschi continues on his way despite an “important acromioclavicular disjunction” in the right clavicle coupled with a dislocation.
His team announced that he felt "violent nocturnal pain in the shoulder" but that "after consulting the medical staff, he will try to take the start of the 2nd stage".
Will he be able to continue for a long time and help his Slovenian leader, winner of the 2020 Tour?
The mission seems impossible ...
AG2R Citroën particularly affected
The list of other cripples who wanted to hit the road is long.
The AG2R Citroën team was the most affected.
Seven of its eight runners ended up on the ground and six of them have multiple traumas and bruises: Ben O'Connor, Benoît Cosnefroy, Dorian Godon, Aurélien Paret-Peintre, Nans Peter and Michaël Schär.
“It was a difficult day,” says Benoît Cosnefroy.
I have a lot of minor injuries but it's the Tour and we know that the first stages are always hectic.
This one was no exception to the rule.
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Sütterlin, Lemoine, Konovalovas and Soler have left the Tour
Clément Russo (Arkéa-Samsic), he is about to ride with a broken rib, and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Cofidis) had twelve stitches put in his left leg… The toll is heavy, especially that four runners have already been forced to throw in the towel. The first to have given up is the German Jasha Sütterlin (DSM), involved in the first fall of the day at 45 km from the line and hit in the right wrist as well as in the elbow. Cyril Lemoine (BB Hotels) left the race with four broken ribs and a moderate pneumothorax, the Lithuanian champion Ignatas Konovalovas (Groupama-FDJ) suffered a head injury with initial loss of consciousness and the Spaniard Marc Soler (Movistar) regrets three fractures to the left arm. He had however managed to get up after the fall linked to the sign, and even to reach the finish line in last position,almost 30 minutes after Julian Alaphilippe, ending with a strong pain in the left wrist.